1563.—"Page.—Don Jeronymo sends to beg that you will go and visit his brother immediately, for though this is not the time of day for visits, delay would be dangerous, and he will be very thankful that you come at once.
"Orta.—What is the matter with the patient, and how long has he been ill?
"Page.—He has got morxi; and he has been ill two hours.
"Orta.—I will follow you.
"Ruano.—Is this the disease that kills so quickly, and that few recover from? Tell me how it is called by our people, and by the natives, and the symptoms of it, and the treatment you use in it.
"Orta.—Our name for the disease is Collerica passio; and the Indians call it morxi; whence again by corruption we call it mordexi.... It is sharper here than in our own part of the world, for usually it kills in four and twenty hours. And I have seen some cases where the patient did not live more than ten hours. The most that it lasts is four days; but as there is no rule without an exception, I once saw a man with great constancy of virtue who lived twenty days continually throwing up ("curginosa"?) ... bile, and died at last. Let us go and see this sick man; and as for the symptoms you will yourself see what a thing it is."—Garcia, ff. 74v, 75.
1578.—"There is another thing which is useless called by them canarin, which the Canarin Brahman physicians usually employ for the collerica passio sickness, which they call morxi; which sickness is so sharp that it kills in fourteen hours or less."—Acosta, Tractado, 27.
1598.—"There reigneth a sicknesse called Mordexijn which stealeth uppon men, and handleth them in such sorte, that it weakeneth a man, and maketh him cast out all that he hath in his bodie, and many times his life withall."—Linschoten, 67; [Hak. Soc. i. 235; Morxi in ii. 22].
1599.—"The disease which in India is called Mordicin. This is a species of Colic, which comes on in those countries with such force and vehemence that it kills in a few hours; and there is no remedy discovered. It causes evacuations by stool or vomit, and makes one burst with pain. But there is a herb proper for the cure, which bears the same name of mordescin."—Carletti, 227.
1602.—"In those islets (off Aracan) they found bad and brackish water, and certain beans like ours both green and dry, of which {587b}they ate some, and in the same moment this gave them a kind of dysentery, which in India they corruptly call mordexim, which ought to be morxis, and which the Arabs call sachaiza (Ar. hayẓat), which is what Rasis calls sahida, a disease which kills in 24 hours. Its action is immediately to produce a sunken and slender pulse, with cold sweat, great inward fire, and excessive thirst, the eyes sunken, great vomitings, and in fact it leaves the natural power so collapsed (derribada) that the patient seems like a dead man."—Couto, Dec. IV. liv. iv. cap. 10.
c. 1610.—"Il regne entre eux vne autre maladie qui vient a l'improviste, ils la nomment Mordesin, et vient auec grande douleur des testes, et vomissement, et crient fort, et le plus souvent en meurent."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 19; [Hak. Soc. ii. 13].
1631.—"Pulvis ejus (Calumbac) ad scrup. unius pondus sumptus cholerae prodest, quam Mordexi incolae vocant."—Jac. Bontii, lib. iv. p. 43.
1638.—"... celles qui y regnent le plus, sont celles qu'ils appellent Mordexin, qui tue subitement."—Mandelslo, 265.
1648.—See also the (questionable) Voyages Fameux du Sieur Victor le Blanc, 76.
c. 1665.—"Les Portugais appellent Mordechin les quatre sortes de Coliques qu'on souffre dans les Indes ou elles sont frequentes ... ceux qui ont la quatrième soufrent les trois maux ensemble, à savoir le vomissement, le flux de ventre, les extremes douleurs, et je crois que cette derniere est le Colera-Morbus."—Thevenot, v. 324.
1673.—"They apply Cauteries most unmercifully in a Mordisheen, called so by the Portugals, being a Vomiting with Looseness."—Fryer, 114.
[1674.—"The disease called Mordechi generally commences with a violent fever, accompanied by tremblings, horrors and vomitings; these symptoms are generally followed by delirium and death." He prescribes a hot iron applied to the soles of the feet. He attributes the disease to indigestion, and remarks bitterly that at least the prisoners of the Inquisition were safe from this disease.—Dellon, Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa, ii. ch. 71.]
1690.—"The Mordechine is another Disease ... which is a violent Vomiting and Looseness."—Ovington, 350.
c. 1690.—Rumphius, speaking of the Jack-fruit (q.v.): "Non nisi vacuo stomacho edendus est, alias enim ... plerumque oritur Passio Cholerica, Portugallis Mordexi dicta."—Herb. Amb., i. 106.
1702.—"Cette grande indigestion qu'on appelle aux Indes Mordechin, et que quelques uns de nos Français ont appellée Mort-de-Chien."—Lettres Edif., xi. 156.
Bluteau (s.v.) says Mordexim is properly a failure of digestion which is very perilous in those parts, unless the native remedy be used. This is to {588a}apply a thin rod, like a spit, and heated, under the heel, till the patient screams with pain, and then to slap the same part with the sole of a shoe, &c.
1705.—"Ce mal s'appelle mort-de-chien."—Luillier, 113.
The following is an example of literal translation, as far as we know, unique:
1716.—"The extraordinary distempers of this country (I. of Bourbon) are the Cholick, and what they call the Dog's Disease, which is cured by burning the heel of the patient with a hot iron."—Acct. of the I. of Bourbon, in La Roque's Voyage to Arabia the Happy, &c., E.T. London, 1726, p. 155.
1727.—"... the Mordexin (which seizes one suddenly with such oppression and palpitation that he thinks he is going to die on the spot)."—Valentijn, v. (Malabar) 5.
c. 1760.—"There is likewise known, on the Malabar coast chiefly, a most violent disorder they call the Mordechin; which seizes the patient with such fury of purging, vomiting, and tormina of the intestines, that it will often carry him off in 30 hours."—Grose, i. 250.
1768.—"This (cholera morbus) in the East Indies, where it is very frequent and fatal, is called Mort-de-chien."—Lind, Essay on Diseases incidental to Hot Climates, 248.
1778.—In the Vocabulary of the Portuguese Grammatica Indostana, we find Mordechim, as a Portuguese word, rendered in Hind. by the word badazmi, i.e. bad-haẓmī, 'dyspepsia' (p. 99). The most common modern Hind. term for cholera is Arab. haiẓah. The latter word is given by Garcia de Orta in the form hachaiza, and in the quotation from Couto as sachaiza (?). Jahāngīr speaks of one of his nobles as dying in the Deccan, of haiẓah, in A.D. 1615 (see note to Elliot, vi. 346). It is, however, perhaps not to be assumed that haiẓah always means cholera. Thus Macpherson mentions that a violent epidemic, which raged in the Camp of Aurangzīb at Bījapur in 1689, is called so. But in the history of Khāfi Khān (Elliot, vii. 337) the general phrases ta'ūn and wabā are used in reference to this disease, whilst the description is that of bubonic plague.
1781.—"Early in the morning of the 21st June (1781) we had two men seized with the mort-de-chien."—Curtis, Diseases of India, 3rd ed., Edinb., 1807.
1782.—"Les indigestions appellées dans l'Inde Mort-de-chien, sont fréquentes. Les Castes qui mangent de la viande, nourriture trop pesante pour un climat si chaud, en sont souvent attaquées...."—Sonnerat, i. 205. This author writes just after having described two epidemics of cholera under the name of Flux aigu. He did not apprehend that this was in fact the real Mort-de-chien.
1783.—"A disease generally called 'Mort-de-chien' at this time (during the defence of Onore) raged with great violence among the native inhabitants."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 122.
1796.—"Far more dreadful are the consequences of the above-mentioned intestinal colic, called by the Indians shani, mordexim, and also Nircomben. It is occasioned, as I have said, by the winds blowing from the mountains ... the consequence is that malignant and bilious slimy matter adheres to the bowels, and occasions violent pains, vomiting, fevers, and stupefaction; so that persons attacked with the disease die very often in a few hours. It sometimes happens that 30 or 40 persons die in this manner, in one place, in the course of the day.... In the year 1782 this disease raged with so much fury that a great many persons died of it."—Fra Paolino, E.T. 409-410 (orig. see p. 353). As to the names used by Fra Paolino, for his Shani or Ciani, we find nothing nearer than Tamil and Mal. sanni, 'convulsion, paralysis.' (Winslow in his Tamil Dict. specifies 13 kinds of sanni. Komben is explained as 'a kind of cholera or smallpox' (!); and nir-komben ('water-k.') as a kind of cholera or bilious diarrhœa.) Paolino adds: "La droga amara costa assai, e non si poteva amministrare a tanti miserabili che perivano. Adunque in mancanza di questa droga amara noi distillasimo in Tàgara, o acqua vite di coco, molto sterco di cavalli (!), e l'amministrammo agl'infermi. Tutti quelli che prendevano questa guarivano."
1808.—"Môrchee or Mortshee (Guz.) and Môdee (Mah.). A morbid affection in which the symptoms are convulsive action, followed by evacuations of the first passage up and down, with intolerable tenesmus, or twisting-like sensation in the intestines, corresponding remarkably with the cholera-morbus of European synopsists, called by the country people in England (?) mortisheen, and by others mord-du-chien and Maua des chienes, as if it had come from France."—R. Drummond, Illustrations, &c. A curious notice; and the author was, we presume, from his title of "Dr.," a medical man. We suppose for England above should be read India.
The next quotation is the latest instance of the familiar use of the word that we have met with:
1812.—"General M—— was taken very ill three or four days ago; a kind of fit—mort de chien—the doctor said, brought on by eating too many radishes."—Original Familiar Correspondence between Residents in India, &c., Edinburgh, 1846, p. 287.
1813.—"Mort de chien is nothing more than the highest degree of Cholera Morbus."—Johnson, Infl. of Tropical Climate, 405.
The second of the following quotations evidently refers to the outbreak {589a}of cholera mentioned, after Macpherson, in the next paragraph.
1780.—"I am once or twice a year (!) subject to violent attacks of cholera morbus, here called mort-de-chien...."—Impey to Dunning, quoted by Sir James Stephen, ii. 339.
1781.—"The Plague is now broke out in Bengal, and rages with great violence; it has swept away already above 4000 persons. 200 or upwards have been buried in the different Portuguese churches within a few days."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, April 21.
These quotations show that cholera, whether as an epidemic or as sporadic disease, is no new thing in India. Almost in the beginning of the Portuguese expeditions to the East we find apparent examples of the visitations of this terrible scourge, though no precise name is given in the narratives. Thus we read in the Life of Giovanni da Emboli, an adventurous young Florentine who served with the Portuguese, that, arriving in China in 1517, the ships' crews were attacked by a pessima malatia di frusso (virulent flux) of such kind that there died thereof about 70 men, and among these Giovanni himself, and two other Florentines (Vita, in Archiv. Stor. Ital. 33). Correa says that, in 1503, 20,000 men died of a like disease in the army of the Zamorin. We have given above Correa's description of the terrible Goa pest of 1543, which was most evidently cholera. Madras accounts, according to Macpherson, first mention the disease at Arcot in 1756, and there are frequent notices of it in that neighbourhood between 1763 and 1787. The Hon. R. Lindsay speaks of it as raging at Sylhet in 1781, after carrying off a number of the inhabitants of Calcutta (Macpherson, see the quotation of 1781 above). It also raged that year at Ganjam, and out of a division of 5000 Bengal troops under Col. Pearse, who were on the march through that district, 1143 were in a few days sent into hospital, whilst "death raged in the camp with a horror not to be described." The earliest account from the pen of an English physician is by Dr. Paisley, and is dated Madras, Feby. 1774. In 1783 it broke out at Hardwār Fair, and is said, in less than 8 days, to have carried off 20,000 pilgrims. The paucity of cases of cholera among European troops in the returns up to 1817, is ascribed by Dr. {589b}Macnamara to the way in which facts were disguised by the current nomenclature of disease. It need not perhaps be denied that the outbreak of 1817 marked a great recrudescence of the disease. But it is a fact that some of the more terrible features of the epidemic, which are then spoken of as quite new, had been prominently described at Goa nearly three centuries before.
See on this subject an article by Dr. J. Macpherson in Quarterly Review, for Jany. 1867, and a Treatise on Asiatic Cholera, by C. Macnamara, 1876. To these, and especially to the former, we owe several facts and references; though we had recorded quotations relating to mordexin and its identity with cholera some years before even the earlier of these publications.
MORDEXIM, MORDIXIM, s. Also the name of a sea-fish. Bluteau says 'a fish found at the Isle of Quixembe on the Coast of Mozambique, very like bogas (?) or river-pikes.'
MOSELLAY, n.p. A site at Shīrāz often mentioned by Hāfiz as a favourite spot, and near which is his tomb.
c. 1350.—
"Boy! let yon liquid ruby flow,
And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
Whate'er the frowning zealots say;
Tell them that Eden cannot show
A stream so clear as Rocnabad;
A bower so sweet as Mossellay."
Hafiz, rendered by Sir W. Jones.
1811.—"The stream of Rúknabád murmured near us; and within three or four hundred yards was the Mossellá and the Tomb of Hafiz."—W. Ouseley's Travels, i. 318.
1813.—"Not a shrub now remains of the bower of Mossella, the situation of which is now only marked by the ruins of an ancient tower."—Macdonald Kinneir's Persia, 62.
MOSQUE, s. There is no room for doubt as to the original of this word being the Ar. masjid, 'a place of worship,' literally the place of sujūd, i.e. 'prostration.' And the probable course is this. Masjid becomes (1) in Span. mezquita, Port. mesquita;[173] (2) {590a}Ital. meschita, moschea; French (old) mosquete, mosquée; (3) Eng. mosque. Some of the quotations might suggest a different course of modification, but they would probably mislead.
Apropos of masjid rather than of mosque we have noted a ludicrous misapplication of the word in the advertisement to a newspaper story. "Musjeed the Hindoo: Adventures with the Star of India in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The Weekly Detroit Free Press, London, July 1, 1882.
1336.—"Corpusque ipsius perditissimi Pseudo-prophetae ... in civitate quae Mecha dicitur ... pro maximo sanctuario conservatur in pulchrâ ipsorum Ecclesiâ quam Mulscket vulgariter dicunt."—Gul. de Boldensele, in Canisii Thesaur. ed. Basnage, iv.
1384.—"Sonvi le mosquette, cioe chiese de' Saraceni ... dentro tutte bianche ed intonicate ed ingessate."—Frescobaldi, 29.
1543.—"And with the stipulation that the 5000 larin tangas which in old times were granted, and are deposited for the expenses of the mizquitas of Baçaim, are to be paid from the said duties as they always have been paid, and in regard to the said mizquitas and the prayers that are made in them there shall be no innovation whatever."—Treaty at Baçaim of the Portuguese with King Bador of Çanbaya (Bahādur Shāh of Guzerat) in S. Botelho, Tombo, 137.
1553.—"... but destined yet to unfurl that divine and royal banner of the Soldiery of Christ ... in the Eastern regions of Asia, amidst the infernal mesquitas of Arabia and Persia, and all the pagodes of the heathenism of India, on this side and beyond the Ganges."—Barros, I. i. 1.
[c. 1610.—"The principal temple, which they call Oucourou misquitte" (Hukuru miskitu, 'Friday mosque').—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 72.]
1616.—"They are very jealous to let their women or Moschees be seen."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 537; [Hak. Soc. ii. 21].
[1623.—"We went to see upon the same Lake a meschita, or temple of the Mahometans."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 69.]
1634.—
"Que a de abominação mesquita immũda
Casa, a Deos dedicada hoje se veja."
Malaca Conquistada, l. xii. 43.
1638.—Mandelslo unreasonably applies the term to all sorts of pagan temples, e.g.—
"Nor is it only in great Cities that the Benjans have their many Mosqueys...."—E.T. 2nd ed. 1669, p. 52.
"The King of Siam is a Pagan, nor do his Subjects know any other Religion. They have divers Mosquees, Monasteries, and Chappels."—Ibid. p. 104.
c. 1662.—"... he did it only for love to their Mammon; and would have sold {590b}afterwards for as much more St. Peter's ... to the Turks for a Mosquito."—Crowley, Discourse concerning the Govt. of O. Cromwell.
1680.—Consn. Ft. St. Geo. March 28: "Records the death of Cassa Verona ... and a dispute arising as to whether his body should be burned by the Gentues or buried by the Moors, the latter having stopped the procession on the ground that the deceased was a Mussleman and built a Musseet in the Towne to be buried in, the Governor with the advice of his Council sent an order that the body should be burned as a Gentue, and not buried by the Moors, it being apprehended to be of dangerous consequence to admit the Moors such pretences in the Towne."—Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 14.
1719.—"On condition they had a Cowle granted, exempting them from paying the Pagoda or Musqueet duty."—In Wheeler, ii. 301.
1727.—"There are no fine Buildings in the City, but many large Houses, and some Caravanserays and Muscheits."—A. Hamilton, i. 161; [ed. 1774, i. 163].
c. 1760.—"The Roman Catholic Churches, the Moorish Moschs, the Gentoo Pagodas, the worship of the Parsees, are all equally unmolested and tolerated."—Grose, i. 44.
[1862.—"... I slept at a Musheed, or village house of prayer."—Brinckman, Rifle in Cashmere, 78.]
MOSQUITO, s. A gnat is so called in the tropics. The word is Spanish and Port. (dim. of mosca, 'a fly'), and probably came into familiar English use from the East Indies, though the earlier quotations show that it was first brought from S. America. A friend annotates here: "Arctic mosquitoes are worst of all; and the Norfolk ones (in the Broads) beat Calcutta!"
It is related of a young Scotch lady of a former generation who on her voyage to India had heard formidable, but vague accounts of this terror of the night, that on seeing an elephant for the first time, she asked: "Will yon be what's called a musqueetae?"
1539.—"To this misery was there adjoyned the great affliction, which the Flies and Gnats (por parte dos atabões e mosquitos), that coming out of the neighbouring Woods, bit and stung us in such sort, as not one of us but was gore blood."—Pinto (orig. cap. xxiii.), in Cogan, p. 29.
1582.—"We were oftentimes greatly annoyed with a kind of flie, which in the Indian tongue is called Tiquari, and the Spanish call them Muskitos."—Miles Phillips, in Hakl. iii. 564.
1584.—"The 29 Day we set Saile from Saint Iohns, being many of vs stung before upon Shoare with the Muskitos; but the same night we tooke a Spanish {591a}Frigat."—Sir Richard Greenevile's Voyage, in Hakl. iii. 308.
1616 and 1673.—See both Terry and Fryer under Chints.
1662.—"At night there is a kind of insect that plagues one mightily; they are called Muscieten,—it is a kind that by their noise and sting cause much irritation."—Saar, 68-69.
1673.—"The greatest Pest is the Mosquito, which not only wheals, but domineers by its continual Hums."—Fryer, 189.
1690.—(The Governor) "carries along with him a Peon or Servant to Fan him, and drive away the busie Flies, and troublesome Musketoes. This is done with the Hair of a Horse's Tail."—Ovington, 227-8.
1740.—"... all the day we were pestered with great numbers of muscatos, which are not much unlike the gnats in England, but more venomous...."—Anson's Voyage, 9th ed., 1756, p. 46.
1764.—
"Mosquitos, sandflies, seek the sheltered roof,
And with full rage the stranger guest assail,
Nor spare the sportive child."
—Grainger, bk. i.
1883.—"Among rank weeds in deserted Bombay gardens, too, there is a large, speckled, unmusical mosquito, raging and importunate and thirsty, which will give a new idea in pain to any one that visits its haunts."—Tribes on My Frontier, 27.
MOTURPHA, s. Hind. from Ar. muḥtarafa, but according to C. P. B. mu'tarifa; [rather Ar. muḥtarifa, muḥtarif, 'an artizan']. A name technically applied to a number of miscellaneous taxes in Madras and Bombay, such as were called sayer (q.v.), in Bengal.
[1813.—"Mohterefa. An artificer. Taxes, personal and professional, on artificers, merchants and others; also on houses, implements of agriculture, looms, &c., a branch of the sayer."—Gloss. 5th Report, s.v.
1826.—"... for example, the tax on merchants, manufacturers, &c. (called mohturfa)...."—Grant Duff, H. of the Mahrattas, 3rd ed. 356.]
MOULMEIN, n.p. This is said to be originally a Talaing name Mut-mwoa-lem, syllables which mean (or may be made to mean) 'one-eye-destroyed'; and to account for which a cock-and-bull legend is given (probably invented for the purpose): "Tradition says that the city was founded ... by a king with three eyes, having an extra eye in his forehead, but that by the machinations of a woman, the {591b}eye in his forehead was destroyed...." (Mason's Burmah, 2nd ed. p. 18). The Burmese corrupted the name into Mau-la-yaing, whence the foreign (probably Malay) form Maulmain. The place so called is on the opposite side of the estuary of the Salwin R. from Martaban (q.v.), and has entirely superseded that once famous port. Moulmein, a mere site, was chosen as the headquarters of the Tenasserim provinces, when those became British in 1826 after the first Burmese War. It has lost political importance since the annexation of Pegu, 26 years later, but is a thriving city which numbered in 1881, 53,107 inhabitants; [in 1891, 55,785].
MOUNT DELY, n.p. (See DELLY, MOUNT.)
MOUSE-DEER, s. The beautiful little creature, Meminna indica (Gray), [Tragulus meminna, the Indian Chevrotain (Blanford, Mammalia, 555),] found in various parts of India, and weighing under 6 lbs., is so called. But the name is also applied to several pigmy species of the genus Tragulus, found in the Malay regions, [where, according to Mr. Skeat, it takes in popular tradition the place of Brer Rabbit, outwitting even the tiger, elephant, and crocodile.] All belong to the family of Musk-deer.
MUCHÁN, s. Hind. machān, Dekh. manchān, Skt. maṅcha. An elevated platform; such as the floor of huts among the Indo-Chinese races; or a stage or scaffolding erected to watch a tiger, to guard a field, or what not.
c. 1662.—"As the soil of the country is very damp, the people do not live on the ground-floor, but on the machán, which is the name for a raised floor."—Shihábuddín Tálish, by Blochmann, in J. A. S. B. xli. Pt. i. 84.
[1882.—"In a shady green mechan in some fine tree, watching at the cool of evening...."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 3rd ed. 284.]
MUCHWA, s. Mahr. machwā, Hind. machuā, machwā. A kind of boat or barge in use about Bombay.
MUCKNA, s. Hind. makhnā, [which comes from Skt. matkuna, 'a bug, a flea, a beardless man, an elephant without tusks']. A male {592a}elephant without tusks or with only rudimentary tusks. These latter are familiar in Bengal, and still more so in Ceylon, where according to Sir S. Baker, "not more than one in 300 has tusks; they are merely provided with short grubbers, projecting generally about 3 inches from the upper jaw, and about 2 inches in diameter." (The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, 11.) Sanderson (13 Years among the Wild Beasts of India, [3rd ed. 66]) says: "On the Continent of India mucknas, or elephants born without tusks, are decidedly rare ... Mucknas breed in the herds, and the peculiarity is not hereditary or transmitted." This author also states that out of 51 male elephants captured by him in Mysore and Bengal only 5 were mucknas. But the definition of a makhnā in Bengal is that which we have given, including those animals which possess only feminine or rudimentary tusks, the 'short grubbers' of Baker; and these latter can hardly be called rare among domesticated elephants. This may be partially due to a preference in purchasers.[174] The same author derives the term from mukh, 'face'; but the reason is obscure. Shakespear and Platts give the word as also applied to 'a cock without spurs.'
c. 1780.—"An elephant born with the left tooth only is reckoned sacred; with black spots in the mouth unlucky, and not saleable; the mukna or elephant born without teeth is thought the best."—Hon. R. Lindsay in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 194.
MUCOA, MUKUVA, n.p. Malayal. and Tamil, mukkuvan (sing.), 'a diver,' and mukkuvar (pl.). [Logan (Malabar, ii. Gloss. s.v.) derives it from Drav. mukkuha, 'to dive'; the Madras Gloss. gives Tam. muzhugu, with the same meaning.] A name applied to the fishermen of the western coast of the Peninsula near C. Comorin. [But Mr. Pringle (Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 187) points out that formerly as now, the word was of much more general application. Orme in a passage quoted below employs it of boatmen at Karikal. The use of the word {592b}extended as far N. as Madras, and on the W. coast; it was not confined to the extreme S.] It was among these, and among the corresponding class of Paravars on the east coast, that F. Xavier's most noted labours in India occurred.
1510.—"The fourth class are called Mechua, and these are fishers."—Varthema, 142.
1525.—"And Dom João had secret speech with a married Christian whose wife and children were inside the fort, and a valiant man, with whom he arranged to give him 200 pardaos (and that he gave him on the spot) to set fire to houses that stood round the fort.... So this Christian, called Duarte Fernandes ... put on a lot of old rags and tags, and powdered himself with ashes after the fashion of jogues (see JOGEE) ... also defiling his hair with a mixture of oil and ashes, and disguising himself like a regular jogue, whilst he tied under his rags a parcel of gunpowder and pieces of slow-match, and so commending himself to God, in which all joined, slipped out of the fort by night, and as the day broke, he came to certain huts of macuas, which are fishermen, and began to beg alms in the usual palaver of the jogues, i.e. prayers for their long life and health, and the conquest of enemies, and easy deliveries for their womenkind, and prosperity for their children, and other grand things."—Correa, ii. 871.
1552.—Barros has mucuaria, 'a fisherman's village.'
1600.—"Those who gave the best reception to the Gospel were the Macóas; and, as they had no church in which to assemble, they did so in the fields and on the shores, and with such fervour that the Father found himself at times with 5000 or 6000 souls about him."—Lucena, Vida do P. F. Xavier, 117.
[c. 1610.—"These mariners are called Moucois."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 314.]
1615.—"Edixit ut Macuae omnes, id est vilissima plebecula et piscatu vivens, Christiana sacra susciperent."—Jarric, i. 390.
1626.—"The Muchoa or Mechoe are Fishers ... the men Theeues, the women Harlots, with whom they please...."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 553.
1677.—Resolved "to raise the rates of hire of the Mesullas (see MUSSOOLA) boatmen called Macquars."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Jan 12, in Notes and Exts. No. i. 54.
[1684.—"The Maquas or Boatmen ye Ordinary Astralogers (sic) for weather did ... prognosticate great Rains...."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. iii. 131.]
1727.—"They may marry into lower Tribes ... and so may the Muckwas, or Fishers, who, I think, are a higher tribe than the Poulias (see POLEA)."—A. Hamilton, i. 310, [ed. 1744, i. 312].
[1738.—"Gastos com Nairos, Tibas, Maquas."—Agreement, in Logan, Malabar, ii. 36.]
1745.—"The Macoas, a kind of Malabars, who have specially this business, and, as we might say, the exclusive privilege in all that concerns sea-faring."—Norbert, i. 227-8.
1746.—"194 Macquars attending the sea-side at night ... (P.) 8 : 8 : 40."—Account of Extraordinary Expenses, at Ft. St. David (India Office MS. Records).
1760.—"Fifteen massoolas (see MUSSOOLA) accompanied the ships; they took in 170 of the troops, besides the Macoas, who are the black fellows that row them."—Orme, ed. 1803, iii. 617.
[1813.—"The Muckwas or Macuars of Tellicherry are an industrious, useful set of people."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 202.]
MUDDÁR, s. Hind. madār, Skt. mandāra; Calotropis procera, R. Brown, N.O. Asclepiadaceae. One of the most common and widely diffused plants in uncultivated plains throughout India. In Sind the bark fibre is used for halters, &c., and experiment has shown it to be an excellent material worth £40 a ton in England, if it could be supplied at that rate; but the cost of collection has stood in the way of its utilisation. The seeds are imbedded in a silky floss, used to stuff pillows. This also has been the subject of experiment for textile use, but as yet without practical success. The plant abounds with an acrid milky juice which the Rājputs are said to employ for infanticide. (Punjab Plants.) The plant is called Ak in Sind and throughout N. India.
MUDDLE, s. (?) This word is only known to us from the clever—perhaps too clever—little book quoted below. The word does not seem to be known, and was probably a misapprehension of budlee. [Even Mr. Brandt and Mrs. Wyatt are unable to explain this word. The former does not remember hearing it. Both doubt its connection with budlee. Mrs. Wyatt suggests with hesitation Tamil muder, "boiled rice," mudei-palli, "the cook-house."]
1836-7.—"Besides all these acknowledged and ostensible attendants, each servant has a kind of muddle or double of his own, who does all the work that can be put off upon him without being found out by his master or mistress."—Letters from Madras, 38.
" "They always come accompanied by their Vakeels, a kind of Secretaries, or interpreters, or flappers,—their muddles in {593b}short; everybody here has a muddle, high or low."—Letters from Madras, 86.
a. Ar. Muftī, an expounder of the Mahommedan Law, the utterer of the fatwā (see FUTWAH). Properly the Muftī is above the Kāẓī who carries out the judgment. In the 18th century, and including Regulation IX. of 1793, which gave the Company's Courts in Bengal the reorganization which substantially endured till 1862, we have frequent mention of both Cauzies and Mufties as authorized expounders of the Mahommedan Law; but, though Kāẓīs were nominally maintained in the Provincial Courts down to their abolition (1829-31), practically the duty of those known as Kāẓīs became limited to quite different objects and the designation of the Law-officer who gave the futwā in our District Courts was Maulavī. The title Muftī has been long obsolete within the limits of British administration, and one might safely say that it is practically unknown to any surviving member of the Indian Civil Service, and never was heard in India as a living title by any Englishman now surviving. (See CAZEE, LAW-OFFICER, MOOLVEE).
b. A slang phrase in the army, for 'plain clothes.' No doubt it is taken in some way from a, but the transition is a little obscure. [It was perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing-gown, smoking-cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Muftī who was familiar in Europe from his appearance in Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Compare the French en Pekin.]
a.—
1653.—"Pendant la tempeste vne femme Industani mourut sur notre bord; vn Moufti Persan de la Secte des Schaï (see SHEEAH) assista à cette derniere extrémité, luy donnant esperance d'vne meilleure vie que celle-cy, et d'vn Paradis, où l'on auroit tout ce que l'on peut desirer ... et la fit changer de Secte...."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 281.
1674.—"Resolve to make a present to the Governors of Changulaput and Pallaveram, old friends of the Company, and now about to go to Golcondah, for the marriage of the former with the daughter of the King's Mufti or Churchman."—Fort St. Geo. Consn., March 26. In Notes and Exts., No. i. 30.
1767.—"3d. You will not let the Cauzy or Mufty receive anything from the tenants unlawfully."—Collectors' Instructions, in Long, 511.
1777.—"The Cazi and Muftis now deliver in the following report, on the right of inheritance claimed by the widow and nephew of Shabaz Beg Khan...."—Report on the Patna Cause, quoted in Stephen's Nuncomar and Impey, ii. 167.
1793.—"§ XXXVI. The Cauzies and Muftis of the provincial Courts of Appeal, shall also be cauzies and mufties of the courts of circuit in the several divisions, and shall not be removable, except on proof to the satisfaction of the Governor-General in Council that they are incapable, or have been guilty of misconduct...."—Reg. IX. of 1793.
[c. 1855.—
"Think'st thou I fear the dark vizier,
Or the mufti's vengeful arm?"
Bon Gaultier, The Cadi's Daughter.]
MUGG, n.p. Beng. Magh. It is impossible to deviate without deterioration from Wilson's definition of this obscure name: "A name commonly applied to the natives of Arakan, particularly those bordering on Bengal, or residing near the sea; the people of Chittagong." It is beside the question of its origin or proper application, to say, as Wilson goes on to say, on the authority of Lieut. (now Sir Arthur) Phayre, that the Arakanese disclaim the title, and restrict it to a class held in contempt, viz. the descendants of Arakanese settlers on the frontier of Bengal by Bengali mothers. The proper names of foreign nations in any language do not require the sanction of the nation to whom they are applied, and are often not recognised by the latter. German is not the German name for the Germans, nor Welsh the Welsh name for the Welsh, nor Hindu (originally) a Hindu word, nor China a Chinese word. The origin of the present word is very obscure. Sir A. Phayre kindly furnishes us with this note: "There is good reason to conclude that the name is derived from Maga, the name of the ruling race for many centuries in Magadha (modern Behar). The kings of Arakan were no doubt originally of this race. For though this is not distinctly expressed in the histories of Arakan, there are several legends of Kings from Benares reigning in that country, and one regarding a Brahman who marries a native princess, and {594b}whose descendants reign for a long period. I say this, although Buchanan appears to reject the theory (see Montg. Martin, ii. 18 seqq.)" The passage is quoted below.
On the other hand the Mahommedan writers sometimes confound Buddhists with fire-worshippers, and it seems possible that the word may have been Pers. magh = 'magus.' [See Risley, Tribes and Castes, ii. 28 seq.] The Chittagong Muggs long furnished the best class of native cooks in Calcutta; hence the meaning of the last quotation below.
1585.—"The Mogen, which be of the kingdom of Recon (see ARAKAN) and Rame, be stronger than the King of Tipara; so that Chatigam or Porto Grande (q.v.) is often under the King of Recon."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 389.
c. 1590.—(In a country adjoining Pegu) "there are mines of ruby and diamond and gold and silver and copper and petroleum and sulphur and (the lord of that country) has war with the tribe of Magh about the mines; also with the tribe of Tipara there are battles."—Āīn (orig.) i. 388; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 120].
c. 1604.—"Defeat of the Magh Rájá.—This short-sighted Rájá ... became elated with the extent of his treasures and the number of his elephants.... He then openly rebelled, and assembling an army at Sunárgánw laid seige to a fort in that vicinity ... Rájá Mán Singh ... despatched a force.... These soon brought the Magh Rájá and all his forces to action ... regardless of the number of his boats and the strength of his artillery."—Ináyatullah, in Elliot, vi. 109.
1638.—"Submission of Manek Ráí, the Mag Rájá of Chittagong."—Abdul-Hamíd Lahori, in do. vii. 66.
c. 1665.—"These many years there have always been in the Kingdom of Rakan or Moy (read Mog) some Portuguese, and with them a great number of their Christian Slaves, and other Franguis.... That was the refuge of the Run-aways from Goa, Ceilan, Cochin, Malague (see MALACCA), and all these other places which the Portugueses formerly held in the Indies."—Bernier, E.T. p. 53; [ed. Constable, 109].
1676.—"In all Bengala this King (of Arakan) is known by no other name but the King of Mogue."—Tavernier, E.T. i. 8.
1752.—"... that as the time of the Mugs draws nigh, they request us to order the pinnace to be with them by the end of next month."—In Long, p. 87.
c. 1810.—"In a paper written by Dr. Leyden, that gentleman supposes ... that Magadha is the country of the people whom we call Muggs.... The term Mugg, these people assured me, is never used by either themselves or by the Hindus, except when {595a}speaking the jargon commonly called Hindustani by Europeans...."—F. Buchanan, in Eastern India, ii. 18.
 They are somewhat of the Malayan race."—Solvyns, iii.
1866.—"That vegetable curry was excellent. Of course your cook is a Mug?"—The Dawk Bungalow, 389.
MUGGUR, s. Hind. and Mahr. magar and makar, from Skt. makara 'a sea-monster' (see MACAREO). The destructive broad-snouted crocodile of the Ganges and other Indian rivers, formerly called Crocodilus biporcatus, now apparently subdivided into several sorts or varieties.
1611.—"Alagaters or Crocodiles there called Murgur match...."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 436. The word is here intended for magar-mats or machh, 'crocodile-fish.'
[1876.—See under NUZZER.]
1878.—"The muggur is a gross pleb, and his features stamp him as low-born. His manners are coarse."—Ph. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 82-3.
1879.—"En route I killed two crocodiles; they are usually called alligators, but that is a misnomer. It is the mugger ... these muggers kill a good many people, and have a playful way of getting under a boat, and knocking off the steersman with their tails, and then swallowing him afterwards."—Pollok, Sport, &c., i. 168.
1881.—"Alligator leather attains by use a beautiful gloss, and is very durable ... and it is possible that our rivers contain a sufficient number of the two varieties of crocodile, the muggar and the garial (see GAVIAL) for the tanners and leather-dressers of Cawnpore to experiment upon."—Pioneer Mail, April 26.
MUGGRABEE, n.p. Ar. maghrabī, 'western.' This word, applied to western Arabs, or Moors proper, is, as might be expected, not now common in India. It is the term that appears in the Hayraddin Mograbbin of Quentin Durward. From gharb, the root of this word, the Spaniards have the province of Algarve, and both Spanish and Portuguese have garbin, a west wind. [The magician in the tale of Alaeddin is a Maghrabī, and to this day in Languedoc and Gascony Maugraby is used as a term of cursing. (Burton, Ar. Nights, x. 35, 379). Muggerbee is used for a coin (see GUBBER).]
1563.—"The proper tongue in which Avicena wrote is that which is used in Syria and Mesopotamia and in Persia and in {595b}Tartary (from which latter Avicena came) and this tongue they call Araby; and that of our Moors they call Magaraby, as much as to say Moorish of the West...."—Garcia, f. 19v.
MULL, s. A contraction of Mulligatawny, and applied as a distinctive sobriquet to members of the Service belonging to the Madras Presidency, as Bengal people are called Qui-his, and Bombay people Ducks or Benighted.
[1837.—"The Mulls have been excited also by another occurrence ... affecting rather the trading than fashionable world."—Asiatic Journal, December, p. 251.]
[1852.—"... residents of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras are, in Eastern parlance, designated 'Qui Hies,' 'Ducks,' and 'Mulls.'"—Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 165.]
1860.—"It ys ane darke Londe, and ther dwellen ye Cimmerians whereof speketh Homerus Poeta in his Odysseia, and to thys Daye thei clepen Tenebrosi or 'ye Benyghted ffolke.' Bot thei clepen hemselvys Mullys from Mulligatawnee whch ys ane of theyr goddys from wch thei ben ysprong."—Ext. from a lately discovered MS. of Sir John Maundeville.
MULLIGATAWNY, s. The name of this well-known soup is simply a corruption of the Tamil milagu-tannīr, 'pepper-water'; showing the correctness of the popular belief which ascribes the origin of this excellent article to Madras, whence—and not merely from the complexion acquired there—the sobriquet of the preceding article.
1784.—
"In vain our hard fate we repine;
In vain on our fortune we rail;
On Mullaghee-tawny we dine,
Or Congee, in Bangalore Jail."
Song by a Gentleman of the Navy
(one of Hyder's Prisoners), in
Seton-Karr, i. 18.
[1823.—"... in a brasen pot was mulugu tanni, a hot vegetable soup, made chiefly from pepper and capsicums."—Hoole, Missions in Madras, 2nd ed. 249.]
MULMULL, s. Hind. malmal; Muslin.
[c. 1590.—"Malmal, per piece ... 4 R."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 94.]
1683.—"Ye said Ellis told your Petitioner that he would not take 500 Pieces of your Petitioner's mulmulls unless your Petitioner gave him 200 Rups. which your Petitioner being poor could not {596a}do."—Petition of Rogoodee, Weaver of Hugly, in Hedges, Diary, March 26; [Hak. Soc. i. 73].
1705.—"Malle-molles et autre diverses sortes de toiles ... stinquerques et les belles mousselines."—Luillier, 78.
MUNCHEEL, MANJEEL, s. This word is proper to the S.W. coast; Malayal. manjīl, mañchal, from Skt. maṅcha. It is the name of a kind of hammock-litter used on that coast as a substitute for palankin or dooly. It is substantially the same as the dandy of the Himālaya, but more elaborate. Correa describes but does not name it.
1561.—"... He came to the factory in a litter which men carried on their shoulders. These are made with thick canes, bent upwards and arched, and from them are suspended some clothes half a fathom in width, and a fathom and a half in length; and at the extremities pieces of wood to sustain the cloth hanging from the pole; and upon this cloth a mattress of the same size as the cloth ... the whole very splendid, and as rich as the gentlemen ... may desire."—Correa, Three Voyages, &c., p. 199.
1811.—"The Inquisition is about a quarter of a mile distant from the convent, and we proceeded thither in manjeels."—Buchanan, Christian Researches, 2nd ed., 171.
1819.—"Muncheel, a kind of litter resembling a sea-cot or hammock, hung to a long pole, with a moveable cover over the whole, to keep off the sun or rain. Six men will run with one from one end of the Malabar coast to the other, while twelve are necessary for the lightest palanquin."—Welsh, ii. 142.
1844.—"Muncheels, with poles complete.... Poles, Muncheel-, Spare."—Jameson's Bombay Code, Ordnance Nomenclature.
1862.—"We ... started ... in Munsheels or hammocks, slung to bamboos, with a shade over them, and carried by six men, who kept up unearthly yells the whole time."—Markham, Peru and India, 353.
c. 1886.—"When I landed at Diu, an officer met me with a Muncheel for my use, viz. a hammock slung to a pole, and protected by an awning."—M.-Gen. R. H. Keatinge.
A form of this word is used at Réunion, where a kind of palankin is called "le manchy." It gives a title to one of Leconte de Lisle's Poems:
c. 1858.—
"Sous un nuage frais de claire mousseline
Tous les dimanches au matin,
Tu venais à la ville en manchy de rotin,
Par les rampes de la colline."
Le Manchy.
The word has also been introduced by the Portuguese into Africa in the forms maxilla, and machilla.
1810.—"... tangas, que elles chamão maxilas."—Annaes Maritimas, iii. 434.
1880.—"The Portuguese (in Quilliman) seldom even think of walking the length of their own street, and ... go from house to house in a sort of palanquin, called here a machilla (pronounced masheela). This usually consists of a pole placed upon the shoulders of the natives, from which is suspended a long plank of wood, and upon that is fixed an old-fashioned-looking chair, or sometimes two. Then there is an awning over the top, hung all round with curtains. Each machilla requires about 6 to 8 bearers, who are all dressed alike in a kind of livery."—A Journey in E. Africa, by M. A. Pringle, p. 89.
MUNGOOSE, s. This is the popular Anglo-Indian name of the Indian ichneumons, represented in the South by Mangusta Mungos (Elliot), or Herpestes griseus (Geoffroy) of naturalists, and in Bengal by Herpestes malaccensis. [Blanford (Mammalia, 119 seqq.) recognises eight species, the "Common Indian Mungoose" being described as Herpestes mungo.] The word is Telugu, mangīsu, or mungīsa. In Upper India the animal is called newal, neolā, or nyaul. Jerdon gives mangūs however as a Deccani and Mahr. word; [Platts gives it as dialectic, and very doubtfully derives it from Skt. makshu, 'moving quickly.' In Ar. it is bint-'arūs, 'daughter of the bridegroom,' in Egypt kitt or katt Farāūn, 'Pharaoh's cat' (Burton, Ar. Nights, ii. 369)].
1673.—"... a Mongoose is akin to a Ferret...."—Fryer, 116.
1681.—"The knowledge of these antidotal herbs they have learned from the Mounggutia, a kind of Ferret."—Knox, 115.
1685.—"They have what they call a Mangus, creatures something different from ferrets; these hold snakes in great antipathy, and if they once discover them never give up till they have killed them."—Ribeyro, f. 56v.
Bluteau gives the following as a quotation from a History of Ceylon, tr. from Portuguese into French, published at Paris in 1701, p. 153. It is in fact the gist of an anecdote in Ribeyro.

1774.—"He (the Dharma Raja of Bhootan) has got a little lap-dog and a Mungoos, which he is very fond of."—Bogle's Diary, in Markham's Tibet, 27.
1790.—"His (Mr. Glan's) experiments have also established a very curious fact, that the ichneumon, or mungoose, which is very common in this country, and kills snakes without danger to itself, does not use antidotes ... but that the poison of snakes is, to this animal, innocent."—Letter in Colebrooke's Life, p. 40.
1829.—"Il Mongùse animale simile ad una donnola."—Papi, in de Gubernatis, St. dei Viagg. Ital., p. 279.
MUNJEET, s. Hind. majīṭh, Skt. maṅjishṭha; a dye-plant (Rubia cordifolia, L., N.O. Cinchonaceae); 'Bengal Madder.'
MUNNEEPORE, n.p. Properly Manipūr; a quasi-independent State lying between the British district of Cachar on the extreme east of Bengal, and the upper part of the late kingdom of Burma, and in fact including a part of the watershed between the tributaries of the Brahmaputra and those of the Irawadi. The people are of genuinely Indo-Chinese and Mongoloid aspect, and the State, small and secluded as it is, has had its turn in temporary conquest and domination, like almost all the States of Indo-China from the borders of Assam to the mouth of the Mekong. Like the other Indo-Chinese States, too, Manipūr has its royal chronicle, but little seems to have been gathered from it. The Rājas and people have, for a period which seems uncertain, professed Hindu religion. A disastrous invasion of Manipūr by Alompra, founder of the present Burmese dynasty, in 1755, led a few years afterwards to negotiations with the Bengal Government, and the conclusion of a treaty, in consequence of which a body of British sepoys was actually despatched in 1763, but eventually returned without reaching Manipūr. After this, intercourse practically ceased till the period of our first Burmese War (1824-25), when the country was overrun by the Burmese, who also entered Cachar; and British troops, joined with a Manipūrī force, expelled them. Since then a British officer has always been resident at Manipūr, and at one time (c. 1838-41) a great deal of labour was expended on opening a road between Cachar and Manipūr. [The murder of Mr. Quinton, Chief-Commissioner of Assam, and other British officers at Manipūr, in the close of 1890, led to the {597b}infliction of severe punishment on the leaders of the outbreak. The Mahārāja, whose abdication led to this tragedy, died in Calcutta in the following year, and the State is now under British management during the minority of his successor.]
This State has been called by a variety of names. Thus, in Rennell's Memoir and maps of India it bears the name of Meckley. In Symes's Narrative, and in maps of that period, it is Cassay; names, both of which have long disappeared from modern maps. Meckley represents the name (Makli?) by which the country was known in Assam; Mogli (apparently a form of the same) was the name in Cachar; Ka-sé or Ka-thé (according to the Ava pronunciation) is the name by which it is known to the Shans or Burmese.
1755.—"I have carried my Arms to the confines of China ... on the other quarter I have reduced to my subjection the major part of the Kingdom of Cassay; whose Heir I have taken captive, see there he sits behind you...."—Speech of Alompra to Capt. Baker at Momchabue. Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 152.
1759.—"Cassay, which ... lies to the N. Westward of Ava, is a Country, so far as I can learn, hitherto unheard of in Europe...."—Letter, dd. 22 June 1759, in ibid. 116.
[1762.—"... the President sent the Board a letter which he had received from Mr. Verelst at Chittagong, containing an invitation which had been made to him and his Council by the Rajah of Meckley to assist him in obtaining redress ... from the Burmas...."—Letter, in Wheeler, Early Records, 291.]
1763.—"Meckley is a Hilly Country, and is bounded on the North, South, and West by large tracts of Cookie Mountains, which prevent any intercourse with the countries beyond them; and on the East[175] by the Burampoota (see BURRAMPOOTER); beyond the Hills, to the North by Asam and Poong; to the West Cashar; to the South and East the Burmah Country, which lies between Meckley and China.... The Burampoota is said to divide, somewhere to the north of Poong, into two large branches, one of which passes through Asam, and down by the way of Dacca, the other through Poong into the Burma Country."—Acct. of Meckley, by Nerher Doss Gosseen, in Dalrymple's Or. Rep., ii. 477-478.
" "... there is about seven days plain country between Moneypoor and Burampoota, after crossing which, about {598a}seven days, Jungle and Hills, to the inhabited border of the Burmah country."—Ibid. 481.
1793.—"... The first ridge of mountains towards Thibet and Bootan, forms the limit of the survey to the north; to which I may now add, that the surveys extend no farther eastward, than the frontiers of Assam and Meckley.... The space between Bengal and China, is occupied by the province of Meckley and other districts, subject to the King of Burmah, or Ava...."—Rennell's Memoir, 295.
1799.—(Referring to 1757). "Elated with success Alompra returned to Monchaboo, now the seat of imperial government. After some months ... he took up arms against the Cassayers.... Having landed his troops, he was preparing to advance to Munnepoora, the capital of Cassay, when information arrived that the Peguers had revolted...."—Symes, Narrative, 41-42.
" "All the troopers in the King's service are natives of Cassay, who are much better horsemen than the Birmans."—Ibid. 318.
1819.—"Beyond the point of Negraglia (see NEGRAIS), as far as Azen (see ASSAM), and even further, there is a small chain of mountains that divides Aracan and Cassé from the Burmese...."—Sangermano, p. 33.
1827.—"The extensive area of the Burman territory is inhabited by many distinct nations or tribes, of whom I have heard not less than eighteen enumerated. The most considerable of these are the proper Burmans, the Peguans or Talains, the Shans or people of Lao, the Cassay, or more correctly Kathé...."—Crawfurd's Journal, 372.
1855.—"The weaving of these silks ... gives employment to a large body of the population in the suburbs and villages round the capital, especially to the Munnipoorians, or Kathé, as they are called by the Burmese.
"These people, the descendants of unfortunates who were carried off in droves from their country by the Burmans in the time of King Mentaragyi and his predecessors, form a very great proportion ... of the metropolitan population, and they are largely diffused in nearly all the districts of Central Burma.... Whatever work is in hand for the King or for any of the chief men near the capital, these people supply the labouring hands; if boats have to be manned they furnish the rowers; and whilst engaged on such tasks any remuneration they may receive is very scanty and uncertain."—Yule, Mission to Ava, 153-154.
MUNSUBDAR. Hind. from Pers. manṣabdār, 'the holder of office or dignity' (Ar. manṣab). The term was used to indicate quasi-feudal dependents of the Mogul Government who had territory assigned to them, on condition of their supplying a certain number of {598b}horse, 500, 1000 or more. In many cases the title was but nominal, and often it was assumed without warrant. [Mr. Irvine discusses the question at length and represents manṣab by "the word 'rank,' as its object was to settle precedence and fix gradation of pay; it did not necessarily imply the exercise of any particular office, and meant nothing beyond the fact that the holder was in the employ of the State, and bound in return to yield certain services when called upon." (J.R.A.S., July 1896, pp. 510 seqq.)]
[1617.—"... slew one of them and twelve Maancipdares."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 417; in ii. 461, "Mancipdaries."
[1623.—"... certain Officers of the Militia, whom they call Mansubdàr."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 97.]
c. 1665.—"Mansebdars are Cavaliers of Manseb, which is particular and honourable Pay; not so great indeed as that of the Omrahs ... they being esteemed as little Omrahs, and of the rank of those, that are advanced to that dignity."—Bernier, E.T. p. 67; [ed. Constable, 215].
1673.—"Munsubdars or petty omrahs."—Fryer, 195.
1758.—"... a munsubdar or commander of 6000 horse."—Orme, ed. 1803, ii. 278.
MUNTRA, s. Skt. mantra, 'a text of the Vedas; a magical formula.'
1612.—"... Trata da causa primeira, segundo os livros que tem, chamados Terum Mandra mole" (mantra-mūla, mūla 'text').—Couto, Dec. V. liv. vi. cap. 3.
1776.—"Mantur—a text of the Shaster."—Halhed, Code, p. 17.
1817.—"... he is said to have found the great mantra, spell or talisman."—Mill, Hist. ii. 149.
MUNTREE, s. Skt. Mantri. A minister or high official. The word is especially affected in old Hindu States, and in the Indo-Chinese and Malay States which derive their ancient civilisation from India. It is the word which the Portuguese made into mandarin (q.v.).
1810.—"When the Court was full, and Ibrahim, the son of Candu the merchant, was near the throne, the Raja entered.... But as soon as the Rajah seated himself, the muntries and high officers of state arrayed themselves according to their rank."—In a Malay's account of Government House at Calcutta, transl. by Dr. Leyden, in Maria Graham, p. 200.
[1811.—"Mantri." See under ORANKAY.
[1829.—"The Mantris of Mewar prefer estates to pecuniary stipend, which gives {599a}more consequence in every point of view."—Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, i. 150.]
MUNZIL, s. Ar. manzil, 'descending or alighting,' hence the halting place of a stage or march, a day's stage.
1685.—"We were not able to reach Obdeen-deen (ye usual Menzill) but lay at a sorry Caravan Sarai."—Hedges, Diary, July 30; [Hak. Soc. i. 203. In i. 214, manzeill].
MUSCÁT, n.p., properly Măskăt. A port and city of N.E. Arabia; for a long time the capital of 'Omān. (See IMAUM.)
[1659.—"The Governor of the city was Chah-Navaze-kan ... descended from the ancient Princes of Machate...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 73.]
1673.—"Muschat." See under IMAUM.
MUSIC. There is no matter in which the sentiments of the people of India differ more from those of Englishmen than on that of music, and curiously enough the one kind of Western music which they appreciate, and seem to enjoy, is that of the bagpipe. This is testified by Captain Munro in the passage quoted below; but it was also shown during Lord Canning's visit to Lahore in 1860, in a manner which dwells in the memory of one of the present writers. The escort consisted of part of a Highland regiment. A venerable Sikh chief who heard the pipes exclaimed: 'That is indeed music! it is like that which we hear of in ancient story, which was so exquisite that the hearers became insensible (behosh).'
1780.—"The bagpipe appears also to be a favourite instrument among the natives. They have no taste indeed for any other kind of music, and they would much rather listen to this instrument a whole day than to an organ for ten minutes."—Munro's Narrative, 33.
MUSK, s. We get this word from the Lat. muschus, Greek μόσχος, and the latter must have been got, probably through Persian, from the Skt. mushka, the literal meaning of which is rendered in the old English phrase 'a cod of musk.' The oldest known European mention of the article is that which we give from St. Jerome; the oldest medical prescription is in a work of Aetius, of Amida (c. 540). In the {599b}quotation from Cosmas the word used is μόσχος, and kastūri is a Skt. name, still, according to Royle, applied to the musk-deer in the Himālaya. The transfer of the name to (or from) the article called by the Greeks καστόριον, which is an analogous product of the beaver, is curious. The Musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus, L.) is found throughout the Himālaya at elevations rarely (in summer) below 8000 feet, and extends east to the borders of Szechuen, and north to Siberia.
c. 390.—"Odoris autem suavitas, et diversa thymiamata, et amomum, et cyphi, oenanthe, muscus, et peregrini muris pellicula, quod dissolutis et amatoribus conveniat, nemo nisi dissolutus negat."—St. Jerome, in Lib. Secund. adv. Jovinianum, ed. Vallarsii, ii. col. 337.
c. 545.—"This little animal is the Musk (μόσχος). The natives call it in their own tongue καστοῦρι. They hunt it and shoot it, and binding tight the blood collected about the navel they cut this off, and this is the sweet smelling part of it, and what we call musk."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, Bk. xi.
["Muske commeth from Tartaria.... There is a certaine beast in Tartaria, which is wilde and big as a wolfe, which beast they take aliue, and beat him to death with small stanes yt his blood may be spread through his whole body, then they cut it in pieces, and take out all the bones, and beat the flesh with the blood in a mortar very smal, and dry it, and make purses to put it in of the skin, and these be the Cods of Muske."—Caesar Frederick, in Hakl. ii. 372.]
1673.—"Musk. It is best to buy it in the Cod ... that which openeth with a bright Mosk colour is best."—Fryer, 212.
MUSK-RAT, s. The popular name of the Sorex caerulescens, Jerdon, [Crocidura caerulea, Blanford], an animal having much the figure of the common shrew, but nearly as large as a small brown rat. It diffuses a strong musky odour, so penetrative that it is commonly asserted to affect bottled beer by running over the bottles in a cellar. As Jerdon judiciously observes, it is much more probable that the corks have been affected before being used in bottling; [and Blanford (Mammalia, 237) writes that "the absurd story ... is less credited in India than it formerly was, owing to the discovery that liquors bottled in Europe and exported to India are not liable to be tainted."] When the female is in heat she is often seen to be followed by a string of males giving out the odour strongly. Can {600a}this be the mus peregrinus mentioned by St. Jerome (see MUSK), as P. Vincenzo supposes?
c.  La deuxiesme espece que les Portugais appellent cheroso ou odoriferant est de la figure d'vn furet" (a ferret), "mais extremement petit, sa morseure est veneneuse. Lorsqu'il entre en vne chambre l'on le sent incontinent, et l'on l'entend crier krik, krik, krik."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 256. I may note on this that Jerdon says of the Sorex murinus,—the large musk-rat of China, Burma, and the Malay countries, extending into Lower Bengal and Southern India, especially the Malabar coast, where it is said to be the common species (therefore probably that known to our author),—that the bite is considered venomous by the natives (Mammals, p. 54), [a belief for which, according to Blanford (l.c. p. 236), there is no foundation].
1672.—P. Vincenzo Maria, speaking of his first acquaintance with this animal (il ratto del musco), which occurred in the Capuchin Convent at Surat, says with simplicity (or malignity?): "I was astonished to perceive an odour so fragrant[176] in the vicinity of those most religious Fathers, with whom I was at the moment in conversation."—Viaggio, p. 385.
1681.—"This country has its vermin also. They have a sort of Rats they call Musk-rats, because they smell strong of musk. These the inhabitants do not eat of, but of all other sorts of Rats they do."—Knox, p. 31.
1789.—H. Munro in his Narrative (p. 34) absurdly enough identifies this animal with the Bandicoot, q.v.
1813.—See Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 42; [2nd. ed. i. 26].
MUSLIN, s. There seems to be no doubt that this word is derived from Mosul (Mauṣal or Mauṣil) on the Tigris,[177] and it has been from an old date the name of a texture, but apparently not always that of the thin semi-transparent tissue to which we now apply it. Dozy (p. 323) says that the Arabs employ mauṣili in the same {600b}sense as our word, quoting the Arabian Nights (Macnaghten's ed., i. 176, and ii. 159), in both of which the word indicates the material of a fine turban. [Burton (i. 211) translates 'Mosul stuff,' and says it may mean either of 'Mosul fashion,' or muslin.] The quotation from Ives, as well as that from Marco Polo, seems to apply to a different texture from what we call muslin.
1298.—"All the cloths of gold and silk that are called Mosolins are made in this country (Mausul)."—Marco Polo, Bk. i. chap. 5.
c. 1544.—"Almussoli est regio in Mesopotamia, in qua texuntur telae ex bombyce valde pulchrae, quae apud Syros et Aegyptios et apud mercatores Venetos appellantur mussoli, ex hoc regionis nomine. Et principes Aegyptii et Syri, tempore aestatis sedentes in loco honorauiliori induunt vestes ex hujusmodi mussoli."—Andreae Bellunensis, Arabicorum nominum quae in libris Avicennae sparsim legebantur Interpretatio.
1573.—"... you have all sorts of Cotton-works, Handkerchiefs, long Fillets, Girdles ... and other sorts, by the Arabians called Mossellini (after the Country Mussoli, from whence they are brought, which is situated in Mesopotamia), by us Muslin."—Rauwolff, p. 84.
c. 1580.—"For the rest the said Agiani (misprint for Bagnani, Banyans) wear clothes of white mussolo or sessa (?); having their garments very long and crossed over the breast."—Gasparo Balbi, f. 33b.
1673.—"Le drap qu'on estend sur les matelas est d'une toille aussy fine que de la mousceline."—App. to Journal d'Ant. Galland, ii. 198.
1685.—"I have been told by several, that muscelin (so much in use here for cravats) and Calligo (!), and the most of the Indian linens, are made of nettles, and I see not the least improbability but that they may be made of the fibres of them."—Dr. Hans Sloane to Mr. Ray, in Ray Correspondence, 1848, p. 163.
c. 1760.—"This city (Mosul)'s manufacture is Mussolin [read Mussolen] (a cotton cloth) which they make very strong and pretty fine, and sell for the European and other markets."—Ives, Voyage, p. 324.
MUSNUD, s. H.—Ar. masnad, from root sanad, 'he leaned or rested upon it.' The large cushion, &c., used by native Princes in India, in place of a throne.
1752.—"Salabat-jing ... went through the ceremony of sitting on the musnud or throne."—Orme, ed. 1803, i. 250.
1757.—"On the 29th the Colonel went to the Soubah's Palace, and in the presence of all the Rajahs and great men of the court, {601a}led him to the Musland...."—Reflexions by Luke Scrafton, Esq., ed. 1770, p. 93.
1803.—"The Peshwah arrived yesterday, and is to be seated on the musnud."—A. Wellesley, in Munro's Life, i. 343.
1809.—"In it was a musnud, with a carpet, and a little on one side were chairs on a white cloth."—Ld. Valentia, i. 346.
1824.—"They spread fresh carpets, and prepared the royal musnud, covering it with a magnificent shawl."—Hajji Baba, ed. 1835, p. 142.
1827.—"The Prince Tippoo had scarcely dismounted from his elephant, and occupied the musnud, or throne of cushions."—Sir W. Scott, Surgeon's Daughter, ch. xiv.
MUSSALLA, s. P.—H. (with change of sense from Ar. maṣāliḥ, pl. of maṣlaḥa) 'materials, ingredients,' lit. 'things for the good of, or things or affairs conducive to good.' Though sometimes used for the ingredients of any mixture, e.g. to form a cement, the most usual application is to spices, curry-stuffs and the like. There is a tradition of a very gallant Governor-General that he had found it very tolerable, on a sharp but brief campaign, to "rough it on chuprassies and mussaulchees" (qq.v.), meaning chupatties and mussalla.
1780.—"A dose of marsall, or purgative spices."—Munro, Narrative, 85.
1809.—"At the next hut the woman was grinding missala or curry-stuff on a flat smooth stone with another shaped like a rolling pin."—Maria Graham, 20.
MUSSAUL, s. Hind. from Ar. mash'al, 'a torch.' It is usually made of rags wrapt round a rod, and fed at intervals with oil from an earthen pot.
c. 1407.—"Suddenly, in the midst of the night they saw the Sultan's camp approaching, accompanied by a great number of mashal."—Abdurazzāk, in N. & Exts. xiv. Pt. i. 153.
1673.—"The Duties[178] march like Furies with their lighted mussals in their hands, they are Pots filled with Oyl in an Iron Hoop like our Beacons, and set on fire by stinking rags."—Fryer, 33.
1705.—"... flambeaux qu'ils appellent Mansalles."—Luillier, 89.
1809.—"These Mussal or link-boys."—Ld. Valentia, i. 17.
1810.—"The Mosaul, or flambeau, consists of old rags, wrapped very closely round a small stick."—Williamson, V. M. i. 219.
[1813.—"These nocturnal processions illumined by many hundred massauls or torches, illustrate the parable of the ten virgins...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 274.
[1857.—"Near him was another Hindoo ... he is called a Mussal; and the lamps and lights are his special department."—Lady Falkland, Chow-Chow, 2nd ed. i. 35.]
MUSSAULCHEE, s. Hind. mash'alchī from mash'al (see MUSSAUL), with the Turkish termination chī, generally implying an agent. [In the Arabian Nights (Burton, i. 239) al-masha'ilī is the executioner.] The word properly means a link-boy, and was formerly familiar in that sense as the epithet of the person who ran alongside of a palankin on a night journey, bearing a mussaul. "In Central India it is the special duty of the barber (nāī) to carry the torch; hence nāī commonly = 'torch-bearer'" (M.-Gen. Keatinge). The word [or sometimes in the corrupt form mussaul] is however still more frequent as applied to a humble domestic, whose duty was formerly of a like kind, as may be seen in the quotation from Ld. Valentia, but who now looks after lamps and washes dishes, &c., in old English phrase 'a scullion.'
1610.—"He always had in service 500 Massalgees."—Finch, in Purchas, i. 432.
1662.—(In Asam) "they fix the head of the corpse rigidly with poles, and put a lamp with plenty of oil, and a mash'alchí [torch-bearer] alive into the vault, to look after the lamp."—Shihábuddín Tálish, tr. by Blochmann, in J.A.S.B. xli. Pt. i. 82.
[1665.—"They (flambeaux) merely consist of a piece of iron hafted in a stick, and surrounded at the extremity with linen rags steeped in oil, which are renewed ... by the Masalchis, or link boys, who carry the oil in long narrow-necked vessels of iron or brass."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 361.]
1673.—"Trois Massalgis du Grand Seigneur vinrent faire honneur à M. l'Ambassadeur avec leurs feux allumés."—Journal d'Ant. Galland, ii. 103.
1686.—"After strict examination he chose out 2 persons, the Chout (Chous?), an Armenian, who had charge of watching my tent that night, and my Mossalagee, a person who carries the light before me in the night."—Hedges, Diary, July 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 232].
[1775.—"... Mashargues, Torch-bearers."—Letter of W. Mackrabie, in Francis, Letters, i. 227.]
1791.—"... un masolchi, ou porte-flambeau, pour la nuit."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 16.
1809.—"It is universally the custom to drive out between sunset and dinner. The Massalchees, when it grows dark, go out to meet their masters on their return, and run before them, at the full rate of eight miles an hour, and the numerous lights moving along the esplanade produce a singular and pleasing effect."—Ld. Valentia, i. 240.
1813.—"The occupation of massaulchee, or torch-bearer, although generally allotted to the village barber, in the purgannas under my charge, may vary in other districts."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 417; [2nd ed. ii. 43].
1826.—"After a short conversation, they went away, and quickly returned at the head of 200 men, accompanied by Mussalchees or torch-bearers."—Pandurang Hari, 557; [ed. 1873, ii. 69].
[1831.—"... a mossolei, or man to light up the place."—Asiatic Journal, N.S. v. 197.]
MUSSENDOM, CAPE, n.p. The extreme eastern point of Arabia, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Properly speaking, it is the extremity of a small precipitous island of the name, which protrudes beyond the N.E. horn of 'Omān. The name is written Masándim in the map which Dr. Badger gives with his H. of 'Oman. But it is Rās Masandam (or possibly Masandum) in the Mohit of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān (J. As. Soc. Ben., v. 459). Sprenger writes Mosandam (Alt. Geog. Arabiens, p. 107). [Morier gives another explanation (see the quotation below).]
1516.—"... it (the coast) trends to the N.E. by N. 30 leagues until Cape Mocondon, which is at the mouth of the Sea of Persia."—Barbosa, 32.
1553.—"... before you come to Cape Moçandan, which Ptolemy calls Asaboro (Ἀσαβῶν ἄκρον) and which he puts in 23½°, but which we put in 26°; and here terminates our first division" (of the Eastern Coasts).—Barros, I. ix. 1.
1572.—
"Olha o cabo Asabóro que chamado
Agora he Moçandão dos navegantes:
Por aqui entra o lago, que he fechado
De Arabia, e Persias terras abundantes."
Camões, x. 102.
By Burton:
"Behold of Asabón the Head, now hight
Mosandam, by the men who plough the Main:
Here lies the Gulf whose long and lake-like Bight,
parts Araby from fertile Persia's plain."
The fact that the poet copies the misprint or mistake of Barros in Asaboro, shows how he made use of that historian.
1673.—"On the one side St. Jaques (see JASK) his Headland, on the other that of Mussendown appeared, and afore Sunset we entered the Straights Mouth."—Fryer, 221.
1727.—"The same Chain of rocky Mountains continue as high as Zear, above Cape Musenden, which Cape and Cape Jaques begin the Gulf of Persia."—A. Hamilton, i. 71; [ed. 1744, i. 73].
1777.—"At the mouth of the Strait of Mocandon, which leads into the Persian gulph, lies the island of Gombroon" (?)—Raynal, tr. 1777, i. 86.
[1808.—"Musseldom is a still stronger instance of the perversion of words. The genuine name of this head-land is Mama Selemeh, who was a female saint of Arabia, and lived on the spot or in its neighbourhood."—Morier, Journey through Persia, p. 6.]
MUSSOOLA, MUSSOOLAH, BOAT, s. The surf boat used on the Coromandel Coast; of capacious size, and formed of planks sewn together with coir-twine; the open joints being made good with a caulking or wadding of twisted coir. The origin of the word is very obscure. Leyden thought it was derived from "masoula ... the Mahratta term for fish" (Morton's Life of Leyden, 64). As a matter of fact the Mahr. word for fish is māsolī, Konk. măsūlī. This etymology is substantially adopted by Bp. Heber (see below); [and by the compiler of the Madras Gloss., who gives Tel. māsūla, Hind. machhlī]. But it may be that the word is some Arabic sea-term not in the dictionaries. Indeed, if the term used by C. Federici (below) be not a clerical error, it suggests a possible etymology from the Ar. masad, 'the fibrous bark of the palm-tree, a rope made of it.' Another suggestion is from the Ar. mauṣūl, 'joined,' as opposed to 'dug-out,' or canoes; or possibly it may be from maḥsūl, 'tax,' if these boats were subject to a tax. Lastly it is possible that the name may be connected with Masulipatam (q.v.), where similar boats would seem to have been in use (see Fryer, 26). But these are conjectures. The quotation from Gasparo Balbi gives a good account of the handling of these boats, but applies no name to them.
c. 1560.—"Spaventosa cosa'è chi nõ ha più visto, l'imbarcare e sbarcar le mercantie e le persone a San Tomè ... adoperano {603a}certe barchette fatte aposta molto alte e larghe, ch'essi chiamano Masudi, e sono fatte con tauole sottili, e con corde sottili cusite insieme vna tauola con l'altre," &c. (there follows a very correct description of their use).—C. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 391.
c. 1580.—"... where (Negapatam) they cannot land anything but in the Maçules of the same country."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 93.
c. 1582.—"... There is always a heavy sea there (San Thomé), from swell or storm; so the merchandise and passengers are transported from shipboard to the town by certain boats which are sewn with fine cords, and when they approach the beach, where the sea breaks with great violence, they wait till the perilous wave has past, and then, in the interval between one wave and the next, those boatmen pull with great force, and so run ashore; and being there overtaken by the waves they are carried still further up the beach. And the boats do not break, because they give to the wave, and because the beach is covered with sand, and the boats stand upright on their bottoms."—G. Balbi, f. 89.
1673.—"I went ashore in a Mussoola, a Boat wherein ten Men paddle, the two aftermost of whom are Steersmen, using their Paddles instead of a Rudder. The Boat is not strengthened with Knee-Timbers, as ours are; the bended Planks are sowed together with Rope-Yarn of the Cocoe, and calked with Dammar (see DAMMER) (a sort of Resin taken out of the Sea), so artificially that it yields to every ambitious Surf."—Fryer, 37.
[1677.—"Mesullas." See MUCOA.]
1678.—"Three Englishmen drowned by upsetting of a Mussoola boat. The fourth on board saved with the help of the Muckwas" (see MUCOA).—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Aug. 13. Notes and Exts., No. i. p. 78.
1679.—"A Mussoolee being overturned, although it was very smooth water and no surf, and one Englishman being drowned, a Dutchman being with difficulty recovered, the Boatmen were seized and put in prison, one escaping."—Ibid. July 14. In No. ii. p. 16.
[1683.—"This Evening about seven a Clock a Mussula coming ashoar ... was oversett in the Surf and all four drowned."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. ii. 54.]
1685.—"This morning two Musoolas and two Cattamarans came off to ye Shippe."—Hedges, Diary, Feb. 3; [Hak. Soc. i. 182].
1760.—"As soon as the yawls and pinnaces reached the surf they dropped their graplings, and cast off the masoolas, which immediately rowed ashore, and landed the troops."—Orme, iii. 617.
1762.—"No European boat can land, but the natives make use of a boat of a particular construction called a Mausolo," &c.—MS. Letter of James Rennell, April 1.
[1773.—"... the governor ... sent also four Mossulas, or country boats, to accommodate him...."—Ives, 182.]
1783.—"The want of Massoola boats (built expressly for crossing the surf) will be severely felt."—In Life of Colebrooke, 9.
1826.—"The masuli-boats (which first word is merely a corruption of 'muchli,' fish) have been often described, and except that they are sewed together with coco-nut twine, instead of being fastened with nails, they very much resemble the high, deep, charcoal boats ... on the Ganges."—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 174.
1879.—"Madras has no harbour; nothing but a long open beach, on which the surf dashes with tremendous violence. Unlucky passengers were not landed there in the ordinary sense of the term, but were thrown violently on the shore, from springy and elastic Masulah boats, and were occasionally carried off by sharks, if the said boats chanced to be upset in the rollers."—Saty. Review, Sept. 20.
MUSSUCK, s. The leathern water-bag, consisting of the entire skin of a large goat, stript of the hair and dressed, which is carried by a bhishtī (see BHEESTY). Hind. mashak, Skt. maśaka.
[1610.—"Mussocke." See under RUPEE.
[1751.—"7 hands of Musuk" (probably meaning Bhistis).—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. II. xi.]
1842.—"Might it not be worth while to try the experiment of having 'mussucks' made of waterproof cloth in England?"—Sir G. Arthur, in Ind. Adm. of Lord Ellenborough, 220.
MUSSULMAN, adj. and s. Mahommedan. Muslim, 'resigning' or 'submitting' (sc. oneself to God), is the name given by Mahommed to the Faithful. The Persian plural of this is Muslimân, which appears to have been adopted as a singular, and the word Muslimān or Musalmān thus formed. [Others explain it as either from Ar. pl. Muslimīn, or from Muslim-mān, 'like a Muslim,' the former of which is adopted by Platts as most probable.]
1246.—"Intravimus terram Biserminorum. Isti homines linguam Comanicam loquebantur, et adhuc loquuntur; sed legem Sarracenorum tenent."—Plano Carpini, in Rec. de Voyages, &c. iv. 750.
c. 1540.—"... disse por tres vezes, Lah, hilah, hilah, lah Muhamed roçol halah, o Massoleymoens e homes justos da santa ley de Mafamede."—Pinto, ch. lix.
1559.—"Although each horde (of Tartars) has its proper name, e.g. particularly the horde of the Savolhensians ... and many others, which are in truth Mahometans; yet do they hold it for a grievous insult and reproach to be called and styled Turks; they {604a}wish to be styled Besermani, and by this name the Turks also desire to be styled."—Herberstein, in Ramusio, ii. f. 171.
[1568.—"I have noted here before that if any Christian will become a Busorman, ... and be a Mahumetan of their religion, they give him any gifts ..."—A. Edward, in Hakl. i. 442.]
c. 1580.—"Tutti sopradetti Tartari seguitano la fede de' Turchi et alla Turchesca credono, ma si tẽgono a gran vergogna, e molto si corrociano l'esser detti Turchi, secondo che all'incontro godono d'esser Besurmani, cioè gẽte eletta, chiamati."—Descrittione della Sarmatia Evropea del magn. caval. Aless. Gvagnino, in Ramusio, ii. Pt. ii. f. 72.
1619.—"... i Musulmani, cioè i salvati: che cosa pazzamente si chiamano fra di loro i maomettani."—P. della Valle, i. 794.
" "The precepts of the Moslemans are first, circumcision ..."—Gabriel Sionita, in Purchas, ii. 1504.
1653.—"... son infanterie d'Indistannis Mansulmans, ou Indiens de la secte des Sonnis."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, 233.
1673.—"Yet here are a sort of bold, lusty, and most an end, drunken Beggars of the Musslemen Cast, that if they see a Christian in good clothes, mounted on a stately horse ... are presently upon their Punctilio's with God Almighty, and interrogate him, Why he suffers him to go a Foot, and in Rags, and this Coffery (see CAFFER) (Unbeliever) to vaunt it thus?"—Fryer, 91.
1788.—"We escape an ambiguous termination by adopting Moslem instead of Musulman in the plural number."—Gibbon, pref. to vol. iv.
MUST, adj. Pers. mast, 'drunk.' It is applied in Persia also, and in India specially, to male animals, such as elephants and camels, in a state of periodical excitement.
[1882.—"Fits of Must differ in duration in different animals (elephants); in some they last for a few weeks, in others for even four or five months."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 3rd ed., 59.]
MUSTEES, MESTIZ, &c., s. A half-caste. A corruption of the Port. mestiço, having the same meaning; "a mixling; applied to human beings and animals born of a father and mother of different species, like a mule" (Bluteau); French, métis and métif.
1546.—"The Governor in honour of this great action (the victory at Diu) ordered that all the mestiços who were in Dio should be inscribed in the Book, and that pay and subsistence should be assigned to them,—subject to the King's confirmation. For a regulation had been sent to India that no mestiço of India should be given pay or subsistence: for, as it was laid down, it was {604b}their duty to serve for nothing, seeing that they had their houses and heritages in the country, and being on their native soil were bound to defend it."—Correa, iv. 580.
1552.—"... the sight of whom as soon as they came, caused immediately to gather about them a number of the natives, Moors in belief, and Negroes with curly hair in appearance, and some of them only swarthy, as being mistiços."—Barros, I. ii. 1.
1586.—"... che se sono nati qua di donne indiane, gli domandano mestizi."—Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, 188.
1588.—"... an Interpretour ... which was a Mestizo, that is halfe an Indian, and halfe a Portugall."—Candish, in Hakl. iv. 337.
c. 1610.—"Le Capitaine et les Marchands estoient Mestifs, les autres Indiens Christianisez."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 165; [Hak. Soc. i. 78; also see i. 240]. This author has also Métifs (ii. 10; [Hak. Soc. i. 373]), and again: "... qu'ils appellent Metices, c'est à dire Metifs, meslez" (ii. 23; [Hak. Soc. ii. 38]).
" "Ie vy vne moustre generalle de tous les Habitans portans armes, tant Portugais que Metices et Indiens, et se trouuerent environ 4000."—Moquet, 352.
[1615.—"A Mestiso came to demand passage in our junck."—Cocks's Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 216.]
1653.—(At Goa) "Les Mestissos sont de plusieurs sortes, mais fort mesprisez des Reinols et Castissos (see CASTEES), parce qu'il y a eu vn peu de sang noir dans la generation de leurs ancestres ... la tache d'auoir eu pour ancestre une Indienne leur demeure iusques à la centiesme generation: ils peuuent toutesfois estre soldats et Capitaines de forteresses ou de vaisseaux, s'ils font profession de suiure les armes, et s'ils se iettent du costé de l'Eglise ils peuuent estre Lecteurs, mais non Prouinciaux."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 226.
c. 1665.—"And, in a word, Bengale is a country abounding in all things; and 'tis for this very reason that so many Portuguese, Mesticks, and other Christians are fled thither."—Bernier, E.T. 140; [ed. Constable, 438].
[1673.—"Beyond the Outworks live a few Portugals Musteroes or Misteradoes."—Fryer, 57.]
1678.—"Noe Roman Catholick or Papist, whether English or of any other nation shall bear office in this Garrison, and shall have no more pay than 80 fanams per mensem, as private centinalls, and the pay of those of the Portuguez nation, as Europeans, Musteeses, and Topasees, is from 70 to 40 fanams per mensem."—Articles and Orders ... of Ft. St. Geo., Madraspatam. In Notes and Exts., i. 88.
1699.—"Wives of Freemen, Mustees."—Census of Company's Servants on the Coast, in Wheeler, i. 356.
1727.—"A poor Seaman had got a pretty Mustice Wife."—A. Hamilton, ii. 10; [ed. 1744, ii. 8].
1781.—"Eloped from the service of his Mistress a Slave Boy aged 20 years, or thereabouts, pretty white or colour of Musty, tall and slinder."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, Feb. 24.
1799.—"August 13th.... Visited by appointment ... Mrs. Carey, the last survivor of those unfortunate persons who were imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.... This lady, now fifty-eight years of age, as she herself told me, is ... of a fair Mesticia colour.... She confirmed all which Mr. Holwell has said...."—Note by Thomas Boileau (an attorney in Calcutta, the father of Major-Generals John Theophilus and A. H. E. Boileau, R.E. (Bengal)), quoted in Echoes of Old Calcutta, 34.
1834.—"You don't know these Baboos.... Most of them now-a-days have their Misteesa Beebees, and their Moosulmaunees, and not a few their Gora Beebees likewise."—The Baboo, &c., 167-168.
1868.—"These Mestizas, as they are termed, are the native Indians of the Philippines, whose blood has to a great extent perhaps been mingled with that of their Spanish rulers. They are a very exclusive people ... and have their own places of amusement ... and Mestiza balls, to which no one is admitted who does not don the costume of the country."—Collingwood, Rambles of a Naturalist, p. 296.
MUSTER, s. A pattern, or a sample. From Port. mostra (Span. muestra, Ital. mostra). The word is current in China, as well as India. See Wells Williams's Guide, 237.
c. 1444.—"Vierão as nossas Galés por commissão sua com algunas amostras de açucar da Madeira, de Sangue de Drago, e de outras cousas."—Cadamosta, Navegação primeira, 6.
1563.—"And they gave me a mostra of amomum, which I brought to Goa, and showed to the apothecaries here; and I compared it with the drawings of the simples of Dioscorides."—Garcia, f. 15.
1601.—"Musters and Shewes of Gold."—Old Transl. of Galvano, Hak. Soc. p. 83.
1612.—"A Moore came aboord with a muster of Cloves."—Saris, in Purchas, i. 357.
[1612-13.—"Mustraes." See under CORGE.]
1673.—"Merchants bringing and receiving Musters."—Fryer, 84.
1702.—"... Packing Stuff, Packing Materials, Musters."—Quinquepartite Indenture, in Charters of the E.I. Co., 325.
1727.—"He advised me to send to the King ... that I designed to trade with his Subjects ... which I did, and in twelve Days received an Answer that I might, but desired me to send some person up with Musters of all my Goods."—A. Hamilton, ii. 200; [ed. 1744].
c. 1760.—"He (the tailor) never measures you; he only asks master for muster, as he terms it, that is for a pattern."—Ives, 52.
1772.—"The Governor and Council of Bombay must be written to, to send round Musters of such kinds of silk, and silk piece-goods, of the manufacture of Bengal, as will serve the market of Surat and Bombay."—Price's Travels, i. 39.
[1846.—"The above muster was referred to a party who has lately arrived from ... England...."—J. Agri. Hort. Soc., in Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. ii. 601.]
MUTLUB, s. Hind. from Ar. maṭlab. The Ar. from ṭalab, 'he asked,' properly means a question, hence intention, wish, object, &c. In Anglo-Indian use it always means 'purpose, gist,' and the like. Illiterate natives by a common form of corruption turn the word into matbal. In the Punjab this occurs in printed books; and an adjective is formed, matbalī, 'opinionated,' and the like.
MUTT, MUTH, s. Skt. maṭha; a sort of convent where a celibate priest (or one making such profession) lives with disciples making the same profession, one of whom becomes his successor. Buildings of this kind are very common all over India, and some are endowed with large estates.
[1856.—"... a Gosaeen's Mut in the neighbourhood ..."—Rās Mālā, ed. 1878, p. 527.]
1874.—"The monastic Order is celibate, and in a great degree erratic and mendicant, but has anchorage places and head-quarters in the maths."—Calc. Review, cxvii. 212.
MUTTONGOSHT, s. (i.e. 'Mutton-flesh.') Anglo-Indian domestic Hind. for 'Mutton.'
MUTTONGYE, s. Sea-Hind. matangai, a (nautical) martingale; a corruption of the Eng. word.
MUTTRA, n.p. A very ancient and holy Hindu city on the Jumna, 30 miles above Agra. The name is Mathura, and it appears in Ptolemy as Μόδουρα ἡ τῶν Θεῶν. The sanctity of the name has caused it to be applied in numerous new localities; see under MADURA. [Tavernier (ed. Ball, ii. 240) calls it Matura, and Bernier (ed. Constable, 66), Maturas.]
MUXADABAD, n.p. Ar.—P. Maḳṣūdābād, a name that often occurs {606a}in books of the 18th century. It pertains to the same city that has latterly been called Murshidābād, the capital of the Nawābs of Bengal since the beginning of the 18th century. The town Maḳṣūdābād is stated by Tiefenthaler to have been founded by Akbar. The Governor of Bengal, Murshid Ḳulī Khān (also called in English histories Jafier Khan), moved the seat of Government hither in 1704, and gave the place his own name. It is written Muxudavad in the early English records down to 1760 (Sir W. W. Hunter).
[c. 1670.—"Madesou Bazarki," in Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 132.]
1684.—"Dec. 26.—In ye morning I went to give Bulchund a visit according to his invitation, who rose up and embraced me when I came near him, enquired of my health and bid me welcome to Muxoodavad...."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 59.
1703-4.—"The first act of the Nuwab, on his return to Bengal, was to change the name of the city of Makhsoosabad to Moorshudabad; and by establishing in it the mint, and by erecting a palace ... to render it the capital of the Province."—Stewart, H. of Bengal, 309.
1726.—"Moxadabath."—Valentijn, Chorom., &c., 147.
1727.—"Muxadabaud is but 12 miles from it (Cossimbazar), a Place of much greater Antiquity, and the Mogul has a Mint there; but the ancient name of Muxadabaud has been changed for Rajahmal, for above a Century."—A. Hamilton, ii. 20; [ed. 1744]. (There is great confusion in this.)
1751.—"I have heard that Ram Kissen Seat, who lives in Calcutta, has carried goods to that place without paying the Muxidavad Syre (see SAYER) Chowkey duties. I am greatly surprised, and send a Chubdar to bring him, and desire you will be speedy in delivering him over."—Letter from Nawab Allyverdi Caun to the Prest. of Council, dated Muxidavad, May 20.
1753.—"En omettant quelques lieux de moindre considération, je m'arrête d'abord à Mocsudabad. Ce nom signifie ville de la monnoie. Et en effet c'est là où se frappe celle du pays; et un grand fauxbourg de cette ville, appelé Azingonge, est la résidence du Nabab, qui gouverne le Bengale presque souverainement."—D'Anville, 63.
1756.—"The Nabob, irritated by the disappointment of his expectations of immense wealth, ordered Mr. Holwell and the two other prisoners to be sent to Muxadavad."—Orme, iii. 79.
1782.—"You demand an account of the East Indies, the Mogul's dominions and Muxadabad.... I imagine when you made the above requisition that you did it with a view rather to try my knowledge {606b}than to increase your own, for your great skill in geography would point out to you that Muxadabad is as far from Madras, as Constantinople is from Glasgow."—T. Munro to his brother William, in Life, &c. iii. 41.
1884.—It is alleged in a passage introduced in Mrs. C. Mackenzie's interesting memoir of her husband, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life, that "Admiral Watson used to sail up in his ships to Moorshedabad." But there is no ground for this statement. So far as I can trace, it does not appear that the Admiral's flag-ship ever went above Chandernagore, and the largest of the vessels sent to Hoogly even was the Bridgewater of 20 guns. No vessel of the fleet appears to have gone higher.
MUZBEE, s. The name of a class of Sikhs originally of low caste, vulg. mazbī, apparently maẓhabī from Ar. maẓhab, 'religious belief.' Cunningham indeed says that the name was applied to Sikh converts from Mahommedanism (History, p. 379). But this is not the usual application now. ["When the sweepers have adopted the Sikh faith they are known as Mazhabis.... When the Chuhra is circumcised and becomes a Musulman, he is known as a Musalli or a Kotána" (Maclagan, Panjab Census Rep., 1891, p. 202).] The original corps of Muzbees, now represented by the 32nd Bengal N.I. (Pioneers) was raised among the men labouring on the Baree Doab Canal.
1858.—"On the 19th June (1857) I advocated, in the search for new Military classes, the raising of a corps of Muzzubees.... The idea was ultimately carried out, and improved by making them pioneers."—Letter from Col. H. B. Edwardes to R. Montgomery, Esq., March 23.
" "To the same destination (Delhi) was sent a strong corps of Muzhubee (low-caste) Sikhs, numbering 1200 men, to serve as pioneers."—Letter from R. Temple, Secretary to Punjab Govt., dd. Lahore, May 25, 1858.
MYDAN, MEIDAUN, s. Hind. from Pers. maidān. An open space, an esplanade, parade-ground or green, in or adjoining a town; a piazza (in the Italian sense); any open plain with grass on it; a chaugān (see CHICANE) ground; a battle-field. In Ar., usually, a hippodrome or race-course.
c. 1330.—"But the brethren were meanwhile brought out to the Medan, i.e., the piazza of the City, where an exceeding great fire had been kindled. And Friar Thomas went forward to cast himself into the fire, {607a}but as he did so a certain Saracen caught him by the hood...."—Friar Odoric, in Cathay, 63.
1618.—"When it is the hour of complines, or a little later to speak exactly, it is the time for the promenade, and every one goes on horseback to the meidan, which is always kept clean, watered by a number of men whose business this is, who water it carrying the water in skins slung over the shoulder, and usually well shaded and very cool."—P. della Valle, i. 707.
c. 1665.—"Celui (Quervansera) des Étrangers est bien plus spacieux que l'autre et est quarré, et tous deux font face au Meidan."—Thevenot, v. 214.
1670.—"Before this house is a great square meidan or promenade, planted on all sides with great trees, standing in rows."—Andriesz, 35.
1673.—"The Midan, or open Space before the Caun's Palace, is an Oblong and Stately Piatzo, with real not belied Cloisters."—Fryer, 249.
1828.—"All this was done with as much coolness and precision, as if he had been at exercise upon the maidaun."—The Kuzzilbash, i. 223.
[1859.—"A 24-pound howitzer, hoisted on to the maintop of the Shannon, looked menacingly over the Maidan (at Calcutta) ..."—Oliphant, Narrative of Ld. Elgin's Mission, i. 60.
MYNA, MINA, &c. s. Hind. mainā. A name applied to several birds of the family of starlings. The common myna is the Acridotheres tristis of Linn.; the southern Hill-Myna is the Gracula, also Eulabes religiosa of Linn.; the Northern Hill-Myna, Eulabes intermedia of Hay (see Jerdon's Birds, ii. Pt. i. 325, 337, 339). Of both the first and last it may be said that they are among the most teachable of imitative birds, articulating words with great distinctness, and without Polly's nasal tone. We have heard a wild one (probably the first), on a tree in a field, spontaneously echoing the very peculiar call of the black partridge from an adjoining jungle, with unmistakable truth. There is a curious description in Aelian (De Nat. An. xvi. 2) of an Indian talking bird which we thought at one time to be the Myna; but it seems to be nearer the Shāmā, and under that head the quotation will be found. [Mr. M‘Crindle (Invasion of India, 186) is in favour of the Myna.]
[1590.—"The Mynah is twice the size of the Shárak, with glossy black plumage, but with the bill, wattles and tail coverts yellow. {607b}It imitates the human voice and speaks with great distinctness."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, iii. 121.]
1631.—Jac. Bontius describes a kind of Myna in Java, which he calls Pica, seu potius Sturnus Indicus. "The owner, an old Mussulman woman, only lent it to the author to be drawn, after great persuasion, and on a stipulation that the beloved bird should get no swine's flesh to eat. And when he had promised accordingly, the avis pessima immediately began to chaunt: Orang Nasarani catjor macan babi! i.e. 'Dog of a Christian, eater of swine!'"—Lib. v. cap. 14, p. 67.
[1664.—"In the Duke's chamber there is a bird, given him by Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, comes from the East Indys, black the greatest part, with the finest collar of white about the neck; but talks many things and neyes like the horse, and other things, the best almost that ever I heard bird in my life."—Pepys, Diary, April 25. Prof. Newton in Mr. Wheatley's ed. (iv. 118) is inclined to identify this with the Myna, and notes that one of the earliest figures of the bird is by Eleazar Albin (Nat. Hist. of Birds, ii. pl. 38) in 1738.
[1703.—"Among singing birds that which in Bengall is called the Minaw is the only one that comes within my knowledge."—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cccxxxiv.]
1803.—"During the whole of our stay two minahs were talking almost incessantly, to the great delight of the old lady, who often laughed at what they said, and praised their talents. Her hookah filled up the interval."—Ld. Valentia, i. 227-8.
1813.—"The myneh is a very entertaining bird, hopping about the house, and articulating several words in the manner of the starling."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 47; [2nd ed. i. 32.]
1817.—"Of all birds the chiong (miner) is the most highly prized."—Raffles, Java, i. 260.
1875.—"A talking mina in a cage, and a rat-trap, completed the adornments of the veranda."—The Dilemma, ch. xii.
1878.—"The myna has no wit.... His only way of catching a worm is to lay hold of its tail and pull it out of its hole,—generally breaking it in the middle and losing the bigger half."—Ph. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 28.
1879.—"So the dog went to a mainá, and said: 'What shall I do to hurt this cat!'"—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 18.
"
"... beneath
Striped squirrels raced, the mynas perked and picked.
The nine brown sisters chattered in the thorn ..."
E. Arnold, The Light of Asia, Book i.
See SEVEN SISTERS in Gloss. Mr. Arnold makes too many!
MYROBALAN, s. A name applied to certain dried fruits and kernels of {608a}astringent flavour, but of several species, and not even all belonging to the same Natural Order, which were from an early date exported from India, and had a high reputation in the medieval pharmacopoeia. This they appear (some of them) to retain in native Indian medicine; though they seem to have disappeared from English use and have no place in Hanbury and Flückiger's great work, the Pharmacographia. They are still, to some extent, imported into England, but for use in tanning and dyeing, not in pharmacy.
It is not quite clear how the term myrobalan, in this sense, came into use. For the people of India do not seem to have any single name denoting these fruits or drugs as a group; nor do the Arabic dictionaries afford one either (but see further on). Μυροβάλανος is spoken of by some ancient authors, e.g. Aristotle, Dioscorides and Pliny, but it was applied by them to one or more fruits[179] entirely unconnected with the subjects of this article. This name had probably been preserved in the laboratories, and was applied by some early translator of the Arabic writers on Materia Medica to these Indian products. Though we have said that (so far as we can discover) the dictionaries afford no word with the comprehensive sense of Myrobalan, it is probable that the physicians had such a word, and Garcia de Orta, who is trustworthy, says explicitly that the Arab practitioners whom he had consulted applied to the whole class the name delegi, a word which we cannot identify, unless it originated in a clerical error for alelegi, i.e. ihlīlaj. The last word may perhaps be taken as covering all myrobalans; for according to the Glossary to Rhazes at Leyden (quoted by Dozy, Suppt. i. 43) it applies to the Kābulī, the yellow, and the black (or Indian), whilst the Emblic is also called Ihlīlaj amlaj.
In the Kashmīr Customs Tariff (in Punjab Trade Report, ccxcvi.) we have entries of
"Hulela (Myrobalan).
Bulela (Bellerick ditto).
Amla (Emblica Phyllanthus)."
The kinds recognised in the Medieval pharmacopoeia were five, viz.:—
(1) The Emblic myrobalan; which is the dried astringent fruit of the Ānwulā, ānwlā of Hind., the Emblica officinalis of Gaertner (Phyllanthus Emblica, L., N. O. Euphorbiaceae). The Persian name of this is āmlah, but, as the Arabic amlaj suggests, probably in older Persian amlag, and hence no doubt Emblica. Garcia says it was called by the Arab physicians embelgi (which we should write ambaljī).
(2) The Belleric Myrobalan; the fruit of Terminalia Bellerica, Roxb. (N.O. Combretaceae), consisting of a small nut enclosed in a thin exterior rind. The Arabic name given in Ibn Baithar is balīlij; in the old Latin version of Avicenna belilegi; and in Persian it is called balīl and balīla. Garcia says the Arab physicians called it beleregi (balīrij, and in old Persian probably balīrig) which accounts for Bellerica.
(3) The Chebulic Myrobalan; the fruit of Terminalia Chebula, Roxb. The derivation of this name which we have given under CHEBULI is confirmed by the Persian name, which is Halīla-i-Kābulī. It can hardly have been a product of Kabul, but may have been imported into Persia by that route, whence the name, as calicoes got their name from Calicut. Garcia says these myrobalans were called by his Arabs quebulgi. Ibn Baithar calls them halīlaj, and many of the authorities whom he quotes specify them as Kābulī.
(4) and (5). The Black Myrobalan, otherwise called 'Indian,' and the Yellow or Citrine. These, according to Royle (Essay on Antiq. of Hindoo Medicine, pp. 36-37), were both products of T. Chebula in different states; but this does not seem quite certain. Further varieties were sometimes recognised, and nine are said to be specified in a paper in an early vol. of the Philos. Transactions.[180] One kind {609a}called Ṣīnī or Chinese, is mentioned by one of the authorities of Ibn Baithar, quoted below, and is referred to by Garcia.
The virtues of Myrobalans are said to be extolled by Charaka, the oldest of the Sanskrit writers on Medicine. Some of the Arabian and Medieval Greek authors, referred to by Royle, also speak of a combination of different kinds of Myrobalan called Tryphera or Tryphala; a fact of great interest. For this is the triphala ('Three-fruits') of Hindu medicine, which appears in Amarakosha (c. A.D. 500), as well as in a prescription of Susruta, the disciple of Charaka, and which is still, it would seem, familiar to the native Indian practitioners. It is, according to Royle, a combination of the black, yellow and Chebulic; but Garcia, who calls it tinepala (tīn-phal in Hind. = 'Three-fruits'), seems to imply that it consisted of the three kinds known in Goa, viz. citrine (or yellow), the Indian (or black), and the belleric. [Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iv. 32 seqq.] The emblic, he says, were not used in medicine there, only in tanning, like sumach. The Myrobalans imported in the Middle Ages seem often to have been preserved (in syrup?).
c. B.C. 340.—"διότι ἡ γέννησις τοῦ καρποῦ ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ ἐστὶ χωρὶς γλυκύτητος. Τῶν μυραβαλάνων δὲ δένδρων ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ, ὅταν φανῶσιν, οἱ καρποί εἰσι γλυκεῖς· κοινῶς δὲ εἰσι στρυφνοὶ καὶ ἐν τῇ κράσει αὐτῶν πικροὶ..."—Aristoteles, De Plantis, ii. 10.
c. A.D. 60.—"φοῖνιξ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ γίνεται· τρυγᾶται δε μετοπωρούσης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ὀπώραν ἀκμῆς, παρεμφέρων τῇ Ἀραβικῇ μυροβαλάνῳ, πόμα δὲ λέγεται."—Dioscorides, de Mat. Medica, i. cxlviii.
c. A.D. 70.—"Myrobalanum Troglodytis et Thebaidi et Arabiae quae Iudaeam ab Aegypto disterminat commune est, nascens unguento, ut ipso nomine apparet, quo item indicatur et glandem esse. Arbor est heliotropio ... simili folio, fructus magnitudine abellanae nucis," &c.—Pliny, xii. 21 (46).
c. 540.—A prescription of Aëtius of Amida, which will be found transcribed under ZEDOARY, includes myrobalan among a large number of ingredients, chiefly of Oriental origin; and one doubts whether the word may not here be used in the later sense.
c. 1343.—"Preserved Mirabolans (mirabolani conditi) should be big and black, and the envelope over the nut tender to the tooth; and the bigger and blacker and {609b}tenderer to the tooth (like candied walnuts), the better they are.... Some people say that in India they are candied when unripe (acerbe), just as we candy[181] the unripe tender walnuts, and that when they are candied in this way they have no nut within, but are all through tender like our walnut-comfits. But if this is really done, anyhow none reach us except those with a nut inside, and often very hard nuts too. They should be kept in brown earthen pots glazed, in a syrop made of cassia fistula[182] and honey or sugar; and they should remain always in the syrop, for they form a moist preserve and are not fit to use dry."—Pegolotti, p. 377.
c. 1343.—(At Alexandria) "are sold by the ten mans (mene, see MAUND), ... amomum, mirobalans of every kind, camphor, castor...."—Ibid. 57.
1487.—"... Vasi grandi di confectione, mirobolani e gengiovo."—Letter on presents sent by the Sultan to L. de' Medici, in Roscoe's Lorenzo, ed. 1825, ii. 372.
1505.—(In Calicut) "li nasce mirabolani, emblici e chebali, li quali valeno ducati do' el baar (see BAHAR.)"—Lionardo Ca' Masser, p. 27.
1552.—"La campagne de Iericho est entournée de mõtaignes de tous costez: poignant laquelle, et du costé de midy est la mer morte.... Les arbres qui portent le Licion, naissent en ceste plaine, et aussi les arbres qui portent les Myrobalans Citrins, du noyau desquels les habitants font de l'huille."[183]—P. Belon, Observations, ed. 1554, f. 144.
1560.—"Mais pource que le Ben, que les Grecz appellent Balanus Myrepsica, m'a fait souvenir des Myrabolans des Arabes, dont y en a cinq especes: et que d'ailleurs, on en vse ordinairement en Medecine, encores que les anciens Grecz n'en ayent fait aucune mention: il m'a semblé bon d'en toucher mot: car i'eusse fait grand tort à ces Commentaires de les priuer d'vn {610a}fruict si requis en Medecine. Il y a donques cinq especes de Myrabolans."—Matthioli, Com. on Dioscorides, old Fr. Tr. p. 394.
1610.—
"Kastril. How know you?
Subtle. By inspection on her forehead;
And subtlety of lips, which must be tasted
Often, to make a judgment.
[Kisses her again.]
'Slight, she melts
Like a Myrabolane."—The Alchemist, iv. 1.
[c. 1665.—"Among other fruits, they preserve (in Bengal) large citrons ... small Mirobolans, which are excellent...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 438.]
1672.—"Speaking of the Glans Unguentaria, otherwise call'd Balanus Mirepsica or Ben Arabum, a very rare Tree, yielding a most fragrant and highly esteem'd Oyl; he is very particular in describing the extraordinary care he used in cultivating such as were sent to him in Holland."—Notice of a Work by Abraham Munting, M.D., in Philosoph. Trans. ix. 249.
MYSORE, n.p. Tam. Maisūr, Can. Maisūru. The city which was the capital of the Hindu kingdom, taking its name, and which last was founded in 1610 by a local chief on the decay of the Vijayanagar (see BISNAGAR, NARSINGA) dynasty. C. P. Brown gives the etym. as Maisi-ūr, Maisi being the name of a local goddess like Pomona or Flora; ūr, 'town, village.' It is however usually said to be a corruption of Mahish-āsura, the buffalo demon slain by the goddess Durga or Kali. [Rice (Mysore, i. 1) gives Can. Maisa, from Skt. Mahisha, and ūru, 'town.']
[1696.—"Nabob Zulphecar Cawn is gone into the Mizore country after the Mahratta army...."—Letter in Wilks, Hist. Sketches, Madras reprint, i. 60.]
MYSORE THORN. The Caesalpinia sepiaria, Roxb. It is armed with short, sharp, recurved prickles; and is much used as a fence in the Deccan. Hyder Ali planted it round his strongholds in Mysore, and hence it is often called "Hyder's Thorn," Haidar kā jhār.
[1857.—"What may be termed the underwood consisted of milk bushes, prickly pears, mysore thorn, intermingled in wild confusion...."—Lady Falkland, Chow-chow, 2nd ed. i. 300.]
NABÓB, s. Port. Nabâbo, and Fr. Nabab, from Hind. Nawāb, which is the Ar. pl. of sing. Nāyab (see NAIB), 'a deputy,' and was applied in a singular sense[184] to a delegate of the supreme chief, viz. to a Viceroy or chief Governor under the Great Mogul, e.g. the Nawāb of Surat, the Nawāb of Oudh, the Nawāb of Arcot, the Nawāb Nāzim of Bengal. From this use it became a title of rank without necessarily having any office attached. It is now a title occasionally conferred, like a peerage, on Mahommedan gentlemen of distinction and good service, as Rāī and Rājā are upon Hindus.
Nabob is used in two ways: (a) simply as a corruption and representative of Nawāb. We get it direct from the Port. nabâbo, see quotation from Bluteau below. (b) It began to be applied in the 18th century, when the transactions of Clive made the epithet familiar in England, to Anglo-Indians who returned with fortunes from the East; and Foote's play of 'The Nabob' (Nábob) (1768) aided in giving general currency to the word in this sense.
a.—
1604.—"... delante del Nauabo que es justicia mayor."—Guerrero, Relacion, 70.
1615.—"There was as Nababo in Surat a certain Persian Mahommedan (Mouro Parsio) called Mocarre Bethião, who had come to Goa in the time of the Viceroy Ruy Lourenço de Tavora, and who being treated with much familiarity and kindness by the Portuguese ... came to confess that it could not but be that truth was with their Law...."—Bocarro, p. 354.
1616.—"Catechumeni ergo parentes viros aliquot inducunt honestos et assessores Nauabi, id est, judicis supremi, cui consiliarii erant, uti et Proregi, ut libellum famosum adversus Pinnerum spargerent."—Jarric, Thesaurus, iii. 378.
1652.—"The Nahab[185] was sitting, {611a}according to the custom of the Country, barefoot, like one of our Taylors, with a great number of Papers sticking between his Toes, and others between the Fingers of his left hand, which Papers he drew sometimes from between his Toes, sometimes from between his Fingers, and order'd what answers should be given to every one."—Tavernier, E. T. ii. 99; [ed. Ball, i. 291].
1653.—"... il prend la qualité de Nabab qui vault autant à dire que monseigneur."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz (ed. 1657), 142.
1666.—"The ill-dealing of the Nahab proceeded from a scurvy trick that was play'd me by three Canary-birds at the Great Mogul's Court. The story whereof was thus in short ..."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 57; [ed. Ball, i. 134].
1673.—"Gaining by these steps a nearer intimacy with the Nabob, he cut the new Business out every day."—Fryer, 183.
1675.—"But when we were purposing next day to depart, there came letters out of the Moorish Camp from the Nabab, the field-marshal of the Great Mogul...."—Heiden Vervaarlijke Schíp-Breuk, 52.
1682.—"... Ray Nundelall ye Nábabs Duan, who gave me a most courteous reception, rising up and taking of me by ye hands, and ye like at my departure, which I am informed is a greater favour than he has ever shown to any Franke...."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 27; [Hak. Soc. i. 42]. Hedges writes Nabob, Nabab, Navab, Navob.
1716.—"Nabâbo. Termo do Mogol. He o Titolo do Ministro que he Cabeca."—Bluteau, s.v.
1727.—"A few years ago, the Nabob or Vice-Roy of Chormondel, who resides at Chickakal, and who superintends that Country for the Mogul, for some Disgust he had received from the Inhabitants of Diu Islands, would have made a Present of them to the Colony of Fort St. George."—A. Hamilton, i. 374; [ed. 1744].
1742.—"We have had a great man called the Nabob (who is the next person in dignity to the Great Mogul) to visit the Governor.... His lady, with all her women attendance, came the night before him. All the guns fired round the fort upon her arrival, as well as upon his; he and she are Moors, whose women are never seen by any man upon earth except their husbands."—Letter from Madras in Mrs. Delany's Life, ii. 169.
1743.—"Every governor of a fort, and every commander of a district had assumed the title of Nabob ... one day after having received the homage of several of these little lords, Nizam ul muluck said that he had that day seen no less than eighteen Nabobs in the Carnatic."—Orme, Reprint, Bk. i. 51.
1752.—"Agreed ... that a present should be made the Nobab that might prove satisfactory."—In Long, 33.
1773.—
"And though my years have passed in this hard duty,
No Benefit acquired—no Nabob's booty."
Epilogue at Fort Marlborough, by W. Marsden, in Mem. 9.
1787.—
"Of armaments by flood and field;
Of Nabobs you have made to yield."
Ritson, in Life and Letters, i. 124.
1807.—"Some say that he is a Tailor who brought out a long bill against some of Lord Wellesley's staff, and was in consequence provided for; others say he was an adventurer, and sold knicknacks to the Nabob of Oude."—Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 371.
1809.—"I was surprised that I had heard nothing from the Nawaub of the Carnatic."—Ld. Valentia, i. 381.
c. 1858.—
"Le vieux Nabab et la Begum d'Arkate."
Leconte de Lisle, ed. 1872, p. 156.
b.—
[1764.—"Mogul Pitt and Nabob Bute."—Horace Walpole, Letters, ed. 1857, iv. 222 (Stanf. Dict.).]
1773.—"I regretted the decay of respect for men of family, and that a Nabob would not carry an election from them.
"Johnson: Why, sir, the Nabob will carry it by means of his wealth, in a country where money is highly valued, as it must be where nothing can be had without money; but if it comes to personal preference, the man of family will always carry it."—Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, under Aug. 25.
1777.—"In such a revolution ... it was impossible but that a number of individuals should have acquired large property. They did acquire it; and with it they seem to have obtained the detestation of their countrymen, and the appellation of nabobs as a term of reproach."—Price's Tracts, i. 13.
1780.—"The Intrigues of a Nabob, or Bengal the Fittest Soil for the Growth of Lust, Injustice, and Dishonesty. Dedicated to the Hon. the Court of Directors of the East India Company. By Henry Fred. Thompson. Printed for the Author." (A base book).
1783.—"The office given to a young man going to India is of trifling consequence. But he that goes out an insignificant boy, in a few years returns a great Nabob. Mr. Hastings says he has two hundred and fifty of that kind of raw material, who expect to be speedily manufactured into the merchantlike quality I mention."—Burke, Speech on Fox's E.I. Bill, in Works and Corr., ed. 1852, iii. 506.
1787.—"The speakers for him (Hastings) were Burgess, who has completely done for himself in one day; Nichols, a lawyer; Mr. Vansittart, a nabob; Alderman Le Mesurier, a smuggler from Jersey; ... and Dempster, who is one of the good-natured candid men who connect themselves with {612a}every bad man they can find."—Ld. Minto, in Life, &c., i. 126.
1848.—"'Isn't he very rich?' said Rebecca.
"'They say all Indian Nabobs are enormously rich.'"—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, i. 17.
1872.—"Ce train de vie facile ... suffit à me faire décerner ... le surnom de Nabob par les bourgeois et les visiteurs de la petite ville."—Rev. des Deux Mondes, xcviii. 938.
1874.—"At that time (c. 1830) the Royal Society was very differently composed from what it is now. Any wealthy or well-known person, any M.P. ... or East Indian Nabob, who wished to have F.R.S. added to his name, was sure to obtain admittance."—Geikie, Life of Murchison, i. 197.
1878.—"... A Tunis?—interrompit le duc.... Alors pourquoi ce nom de Nabab?—Bah! les Parisiens n'y regardent pas de si près. Pour eux tout riche étranger est un Nabab, n'importe d'où il vienne."—Le Nabab, par Alph. Daudet, ch. i.
It is purism quite erroneously applied when we find Nabob in this sense miswritten Nawab; thus:
1878.—"These were days when India, little known still in the land that rules it, was less known than it had been in the previous generation, which had seen Warren Hastings impeached, and burghs[186] bought and sold by Anglo-Indian Nawabs."—Smith's Life of Dr John Wilson, 30.
But there is no question of purism in the following delicious passage:
1878.—"If ... the spirited proprietor of the Daily Telegraph had been informed that our aid of their friends the Turks would have taken the form of a tax upon paper, and a concession of the Levis to act as Commanders of Regiments of Bashi-Bozouks, with a request to the Generalissimo to place them in as forward a position as Nabob was given in the host of King David, the harp in Peterborough Court would not have twanged long to the tune of a crusade in behalf of the Sultan of Turkey."—Truth, April 11, p. 470. In this passage in which the wit is equalled only by the scriptural knowledge, observe that Nabob = Naboth, and Naboth = Uriah.
NACODA, NACODER, &c., s. Pers. nā-khudā (navis dominus) 'a skipper'; the master of a native vessel. (Perhaps the original sense is rather the owner of the ship, going with it as his own supercargo.) It is hard to understand why Reinaud (Relation, ii. 42) calls this a "Malay word ... {612b}derived from the Persian," especially considering that he is dealing with a book of the 9th and 10th centuries. [Mr. Skeat notes that the word is sometimes, after the manner of Hobson-Jobson, corrupted by the Malays into Anak kuda, 'son of a horse.']
c. 916.—"Bientôt l'on ne garda pas même de ménagements pour les patrons de navires (nawākhuda, pl. of nākhudā) Arabes, et les maîtres de batiments marchands furent en butte à des pretensions injustes."—Relation, &c., i. 68.
c. 1348.—"The second day after our arrival at the port of Kailūkarī, this princess invited the nākhodha, or owner of the ship (ṣāḥib-al-markab), the karānī (see CRANNY) or clerk, the merchants, the chief people, the tandail (see TINDAL) or commander of the crew, the sipasalār (see SIPAHSELAR) or commander of the fighting men."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 250.
1502.—"But having been seen by our fleet, the caravels made for them, and the Moors being laden could no longer escape. So they brought them to the Captain General, and all struck sail, and from six of the Zambucos (see SAMBOOK) the nacodas came to the Captain General."—Correa, i. 302.
1540.—"Whereupon he desired us that the three necodas of the Junks, so are the commanders of them called in that country...."—Pinto, (orig. cap. xxxv.) in Cogan, p. 42.
[c. 1590.—"In large ships there are twelve classes. 1. The Nakhuda, or owner of the ship. This word is evidently a short form of Nāvkhudā. He fixes the course of the ship."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 280.]
1610.—"The sixth Nohuda Melech Ambor, Captaine of a great ship of Dabull (see DABUL), came ashore with a great many of Merchants with him, he with the rest were carried about the Towne in pompe."—Sir H. Middleton, in Purchas, i. 260.
[1616.—"Nohody Chinhonne's voyage for Syam was given over."—Foster, Letters, iv. 187.]
1623.—"The China Nocheda hath too long deluded you through your owne simplicitie to give creditt unto him."—Council at Batavia, to Rich. Cocks, in his Diary, ii. 341.
1625.—Purchas has the word in many forms; Nokayday, Nahoda, Nohuda, &c.
1638.—"Their nockado or India Pilot was stab'd in the Groyne twice."—In Hakl. iv. 48.
1649.—"In addition to this a receipt must be exacted from the Nachodas."—Secret Instructions in Baldaeus (Germ.), p. 6.
1758.—"Our Chocarda[187] (?) assured us they {613a}were rogues; but our Knockaty or pilot told us he knew them."—Ives, 248. This word looks like confusion, in the manner of the poet of the "Snark," between nākhuda and (Hind.) arkātī, "a pilot," [so called because many came from Arcot.]
[1822.—"The Knockada was very attentive to Thoughtless and his family...."—Wallace, Fifteen Years in India, 241.
[1831.—"The Roban (Ar. rubbān, 'the master of a ship') and Nockader being afraid to keep at sea all night ..."—Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself, ii. 303.]
1880.—"That a pamphlet should be printed, illustrated by diagrams, and widely circulated, commends itself to the Government of India ... copies being supplied to Nakhudas and tindals of native craft at small cost."—Resn. of Govt. of India as to Lights for Shipping, 28 Jan.
NAGA, n.p. The name applied to an extensive group of uncivilised clans of warlike and vindictive character in the eastern part of the hill country which divides Assam Proper (or the valley of the Brahmaputra) from Kachār and the basin of the Surma. A part of these hills was formed into a British district, now under Assam, in 1867, but a great body of the Nāga clans is still independent. The etymology of the name is disputed; some identifying it with the Nāga or Snake Aborigines, who are so prominent in the legends and sculptures of the Buddhists. But it is, perhaps, more probable that the word is used in the sense of 'naked' (Skt. nagna, Hind. nangā, Beng. nengṭā, &c.), which, curiously enough, is that which Ptolemy attributes to the name, and which the spelling of Shihābuddīn also indicates. [The word is also used for a class of ascetics of the Dādupanthī sect, whose head-quarters are at Jaypur.]
c. A.D. 50.—"Καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Μαιάνδρου, ... Ναγγα λόγαι ὃ σημαίνει γυμνῶν κόσμος."—Ptol. VII. ii. 18.
c. 1662.—"The Rájah had first intended to fly to the Nágá Hills, but from fear of {613b}our army the Nágás[188] would not afford him an asylum. 'The Nágás live in the southern mountains of Asám, have a light brown complexion, are well built, but treacherous. In number they equal the helpers of Yagog and Magog, and resemble in hardiness and physical strength the 'Ádis (an ancient Arabian tribe). They go about naked like beasts.... Some of their chiefs came to see the Nawáb. They wore dark hip-clothes (lung), ornamented with cowries, and round about their heads they wore a belt of boar's tusks, allowing their black hair to hang down their neck.'"—Shihábuddín Tálísh, tr. by Prof. Blochmann, in J. As. Soc. Beng., xli. Pt. i. p. 84. [See Plate xvi. of Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal; Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xxvi. 161 seqq.]
1883.—A correspondent of the "Indian Agriculturist" (Calcutta), of Sept. 1, dates from the Naga Hills, which he calls "Noga, from Nok, not Naga, ..." an assertion which one is not bound to accept. "One on the Spot" is not bound to know the etymology of a name several thousand years old.
[Of the ascetic class:
[1879.—"The Nágás of Jaipur are a sect of militant devotees belonging to the Dádú Panthi sect, who are enrolled in regiments to serve the State; they are vowed to celibacy and to arms, and constitute a sort of military order in the sect."—Rajputana Gazetteer, ii. 147.]
NAGAREE, s. Hind. from Skt. nāgarī. The proper Sanskrit character, meaning literally 'of the city'; and often called deva-nāgarī, 'the divine city character.'
[1623.—"An antique character ... us'd by the Brachmans, who in distinction from other vulgar Characters ... call it Nagheri."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 75.
[1781.—"The Shanskrit alphabet ... is now called Diewnāgar, or the Language of Angels...."—Halhed, Code, Intro. xxiii.]
[c. 1805.—"As you sometimes see Mr. Wilkins, who was the inventor of printing with Bengal and Nagree types...."—Letter of Colebrooke, in Life, 227.]
NAIB, s. Hind. from Ar. nāyab, a deputy; (see also under NABOB).
[c. 1610.—In the Maldives, "Of these are constituted thirteen provinces, over each of which is a chief called a Naybe."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 198.]
1682.—"Before the expiration of this time we were overtaken by ye Caddie's Neip, ye Meerbar's (see MEARBAR) deputy, and ye Dutch Director's Vakill (see VAKEEL) (by the way it is observable ye Dutch omit no opportunity to do us all the prejudice that lyes in their power)."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 11; [Hak. Soc. i. 35].
1765.—"... this person was appointed Niab, or deputy governor of Orissa."—Holwell, Hist. Events, i. 53.
[1856.—"The Naib gave me letters to the chiefs of several encampments, charging them to provide me with horses."—Ferrier, Caravan Journeys, 237.]
NAIK, NAIQUE, &c. s. Hind. nāyak. A term which occurs in nearly all the vernacular languages; from Skt. nāyaka, 'a leader, chief, general.' The word is used in several applications among older writers (Portuguese) referring to the south and west of India, as meaning a native captain or headman of some sort (a). It is also a title of honour among Hindus in the Deccan (b). It is again the name of a Telugu caste, whence the general name of the Kings of Vijayanagara (A.D. 1325-1674), and of the Lords of Madura (1559-1741) and other places (c). But its common Anglo-Indian application is to the non-commissioned officer of Sepoys who corresponds to a corporal, and wears the double chevron of that rank (d).
(a)—
c. 1538.—"Mandou tambem hũ Nayque com vinti Abescins, que nos veio guardando dos ladrões."—Pinto, ch. iv.
1548.—"With these four captains there are 12 naiques, who receive as follows—to wit, for 7 naiques who have 37 pardaos and 1 tanga a year ... 11,160 reis. For Cidi naique, who has 30 pardaos, 4 tangas ... and Madguar naique the same ... and Salgy naique 24 pardaos a year, and two nafares [Ar. nafar, 'servant'] who have 8 vintens a month, equal to 12 pardaos 4 tangas a year."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 215.
1553.—"To guard against these he established some people of the same island of the Canarese Gentoos with their Naiques, who are the captains of the footmen and of the horsemen."—Barros, Dec. II. Liv. v. cap. 4.
c. 1565.—"Occorse l'anno 1565, se mi ricordo bene, che il Naic cioè il Signore della Città li mandi a domandami certi caualli Arabi."—C. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 391.
c. 1610.—"Ie priay donc ce capitaine ... qu'il me fit bailler vne almadie ou basteau auec des mariniers et vn Naique pour truchement."—Mocquet, 289.
1646.—"Il s'appelle Naïque, qui signifie Capitaine, doutant que c'est vn Capitaine du Roy du Narzingue."—Barretto, Rel. du Prov. de Malabar, 255.
(b)—
1598.—"The Kings of Decam also have a custome when they will honour a man or {614b}recompense [recompence] their service done, and rayse him to dignitie and honour. They give him the title of Naygue, which signifieth a Capitaine."—Linschoten, 51; [Hak. Soc. i. 173].
1673.—"The Prime Nobility have the title of Naiks or Naigs."—Fryer, 162.
c. 1704.—"Hydur Sáhib, the son of Muhammad Ilias, at the invitation of the Ministers of the Polygar of Mysore, proceeded to that country, and was entertained by them in their service ... he also received from them the honourable title of Naik, a term which in the Hindu dialect signifies an officer or commander of foot soldiers."—H. of Hydur Naik, p. 7. This was the uncle of the famous Haidar Naik or Hyder Ali Khan.
(c)—
1604.—"Maduré; corte del Naygue Señor destas terras."—Guerrero, Relacion, 101.
1616.—"... and that orders should be given for issuing a proclamation at Negapatam that no one was to trade at Tevenapatam, Porto Novo, or other port belonging to the Naique of Ginja or the King of Massulapatam."—Bocarro, 619.
1646.—"Le Naique de Maduré, à qui appartient la coste de la pescherie, a la pesche d'vn jour par semaine pour son tribut."—Barretto, 248.
c. 1665.—"Il y a plusieurs Naiques au Sud de Saint-Thomé, qui sont Souverains: Le Naique de Madure en est un."—Thevenot, v. 317.
1672.—"The greatest Lords and Naiks of this kingdom (Carnataca) who are subject to the Crown of Velour ... namely Vitipa naik of Madura, the King's Cuspidore- (see CUSPADORE) bearer ... and Cristapa naik of Chengier, the King's Betel-holder ... the naik of Tanjower the King's Shield-bearer."—Baldaeus (Germ.), p. 153.
1809.—"All I could learn was that it was built by a Naig of the place."—Ld. Valentia, i. 398.
(d)—
[c. 1610.—"These men are hired, whether Indians or Christians, and are called Naicles."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 42.]
1787.—"A Troop of Native Cavalry on the present Establishment consists of 1 European subaltern, 1 European sergeant, 1 Subidar, 3 Jemidars, 4 Havildars, 4 Naigues, 1 Trumpeter, 1 Farrier, and 68 Privates."—Regns. for H. Co.'s Troops on the Coast of Coromandel, &c., 6.
1834.—"... they went gallantly on till every one was shot down except the one naik, who continued hacking at the gate with his axe ... at last a shot from above ... passed through his body. He fell, but in dying hurled his axe against the enemy."—Mrs. Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life, i. 37-38.
We may add as a special sense that in West India Naik is applied to the head-man of a hamlet (Kūrī) or camp (Tānda) of Brinjarries (q.v.). [Bhangi and Jhangi Naiks, the famous Banjāra leaders, are said to have had 180,000 bullocks in their camp. See Berar Gazetteer, 196.]
NAIR, s. Malayal. nāyar; from the same Skt. origin as Naik. Name of the ruling caste in Malabar. [The Greek νάουρα as a tract stood for the country of the Nairs. For their customs, see Logan, Malabar, i. 131.]
1510.—"The first class of Pagans in Calicut are called Brahmins. The second are Naeri, who are the same as the gentlefolks amongst us; and these are obliged to bear sword and shield or bows and lances."—Varthema, pp. 141-142.
1516.—"These kings do not marry ... only each has a mistress, a lady of great lineage and family, which is called nayre."—Barbosa, 165.
1553.—"And as ... the Gentiles of the place are very superstitious in dealing with people foreign to their blood, and chiefly those called Brammanes and Naires."—Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. 7.
1563.—"... The Naires who are the Knights."—Garcia.
1582.—"The Men of Warre which the King of Calicut and the other Kings have, are Nayres, which be all Gentlemen."—Castañeda (by N. L.), f. 35b.